Topsy Turvy Life
by FickleArtist
Summary: Timmy's life has never been easy what with parents that run off, a pain in the ass babysitter, and bullies but this, this is a whole new level of messed up. **M for later chapters and my own paranoia**
1. Prologue

A sudden shriek filled the room of a buck toothed teenager. The boy fell out of bed, heart racing as he scanned the room for the source of the noise before settling on a purple haired toddler. Looking at his clock Timmy Turner let out a sigh. There was no way he'd be able to go back to sleep now, it wasn't long before he was supposed to be up anyway. A pink haired woman appeared out of thin air beside the child while Timmy untangled himself from his sheets.

"Sorry Sport, Cosmo decided to mention the D-O-C-T-O-R visit in front of Poof. I doubt he realized how much trouble that would cause" turning to her son who had turned himself into a tightly shut clam, "come on now sweetie you just have to go for a quick checkup"

The woman's green haired husband appeared at the foot of Timmy's bed with a swollen jaw. Not fully understanding why he was in trouble the fairy tried to help console the toddler.

"Yeah, all he'll do is use this super long needle to give you a dozen shots then poke and prod you to make sure you're growing right"

Not only did this cause the young fairy to begin screaming but his tears also began to quickly fill the room. Deciding that saving her godson was more important than being angry at her husband Wanda transported both of them into the living room. Timmy found himself dressed in his signature pink shirt and hat, although barefoot, with his godfather who was now sporting a straight jacket and gag. As he had already wished for his room to be soundproofed due to Poof's many tantrums Timmy went about his normal morning routine. Cosmo spent a full twenty minutes struggling against the jacket before realizing his wand was in his hand and releasing himself.

Wanda poofed herself into the living room not long after Cosmo freed himself with Timmy's shoes, socks, and backpack. Apparently Poof was still throwing a fit about his doctor's appointment.

"Might as well head over there now before Poof destroys your room again Timmy. If things go well we should be back before you get home but-"

"But more than likely you won't get back until late tonight, I know. I'll be fine Wanda."

The fairy frowned as the past week hadn't been going so well for him. His parents had ignored his birthday several days before, Crocker seemed determined to force him to repeat the 8th grade to try and catch his fairies, and there were rumors Tootie was cheating on him. Timmy had been trying his hardest to act like it didn't bother him but none of it had fooled her. It seemed wrong to leave him alone at the moment but as much as she hated to admit it she needed her idiot husband's help to get through the appointment. With a last goodbye they left, leaving the boy to watch TV until his parents came down for breakfast.

His dad came down dressed for work two hours later. Since he was running late Mr. Turner decided to go ahead and start breakfast without his wife. Timmy made some waffles for them to share as well as some for his mom. As his father read the paper while eating, Timmy finished up some homework he'd forgotten about. It was surprisingly late when Timmy's mom finally came down and right away her family could tell something was off.

Her face was an emotionless mask but her body was tense. Without a word to them she walked up to table with a folder clutched in her hands, snatched the paper from her husband to replace it with the folder, and walked out of the house. Confused Timmy looked at his father who was reading over the papers in the folder. As he read Mr. Turner's face tensed up before putting the papers back in their folder.

"What's up?"

Mr. Turner looked at his concerned son with a false smile. His assurances that everything was fine didn't convince the teen but an explanation would have to wait. Knocks on the door announced the arrival of Timmy's band of misfit comrades who had decided to start riding their bikes to school together to avoid Francis. With the promise of a discussion later that night Timmy left.

All that day Timmy found it impossible to focus on anything. His friends began to ask questions after he failed to put in a single word in a Crimson Chin discussion but he just brushed them off. Not even a threatened pounding from Francis could keep him from thinking up theories as to the folder's contents. Each one was wilder than the next though the most obvious one was always on his mind. His parents were childhood sweethearts yet that wouldn't prevent his mom from seeking a divorce. Hoping his imagination was just running wild was all that kept him from ditching school to confront his dad at work.

One of A.J.'s review sessions for an upcoming exam delayed his return home by a few hours. Not that Timmy participated much unless the question was repeated a dozen times and he was yelled at. At the end of the session A.J. gave him twice as many review sheets as the others. The others also agreed to have another session on Saturday, mostly for Timmy's sake.

The car wasn't in the driveway when he arrived home which wasn't all the strange. In fact it made him hopeful that his parents had made up before he came home and decided to spend the night out on the town. By tomorrow the whole thing would be forgotten and things in the Turner household would return to normal. However after unlocking the door Timmy discovered several things were missing from the house, including most of the dishes, half the living room furniture, and all pictures of his parents together had been torn up. His heart seemed to vanish as he realized things were just as bad as he had feared. A quick look around his parents' room confirmed his fears. Some clothes from the closet had been thrown around the room while the rest were obviously missing and several dresser drawers were opened and empty. All of the clothes left in the room appeared to belong to Mr. Turner.

Timmy sat on the bottom of the staircase and waited for his dad to come home, feeling sick. Not long after the front door opened to reveal a distressed looking Mr. Turner. His son's eyes pleaded to be told that he was wrong about everything, that everything would be okay. The look in his father's eyes told him all he needed to know. Pulling the rim of his hat down over his eyes, Timmy Turner began to cry. Sure his family wasn't perfect but at least he'd known his parents loved each other and him, even if they did tend to leave him with a horrible babysitter a lot.

An arm wrapped around his shoulders as his dad sat next to him. Normally his father was as big an idiot as Cosmo and overly dramatic to boot but he seemed to be uncharacteristically calm. His son's wellbeing was becoming his top priority for the first time since before Vicky offered her services. After Timmy calmed down his father began to explain the situation.

Mrs. Turner wanted a divorce. She didn't want to fight over the house or any of their possessions so Mr. Turner had agreed to let her take whatever she wanted while he was at work. Recently she had been renting an apartment in the city to crash in when work ran late and would now be living there permanently with her boyfriend. Apparently the apartment was being used as a place for her to meet her lovers easily instead of sneaking around like she had been doing. This current boyfriend was just one of many she had had over the past eighteen months.

Timmy's dad hoped his son would leave it at that for the night. When Timmy didn't say anything his father figured that would be the end of it for the time being and began to climb the stairs.

"Dad?"

His father froze mid-step, filled with dread. He prayed that his son wasn't about to ask the question that would break both of their hearts.

"Am I still going to live here?" it wasn't _the_ question but it was dangerously close.

"No son, you'll still live here with me."

"What about when I go see mom?"

Mr. Turner turned around to face his son who was now on his feet looking at him with red eyes. Timmy was trying to hold back a fresh wave of tears but he couldn't stop himself from shaking. They both knew the answer to the question, one hoped to be proven wrong while the other would have given anything not to say it.

"Timmy it's late, why don't we talk-?"

"Please"

Sighing Mr. Turner once again sat on the stairs, "Timmy your mom won't be fighting for custody."

"What?" Mother's hardly ever gave up custody unless, of course, they didn't care about their child anymore.

"She doesn't want you to be taken away from your friends" his father lied, hoping to convince the boy. It didn't work.

"Don't lie to me"

"I'm not-"

"Yes you are!" The teen's sadness was suddenly replaced by anger. Anger towards his mother for being so cold and anger towards his father for not being completely honest about what was going on. "She doesn't want me to live with her does she?"

"Timmy"

"Does she?!"

"Timmy I want you to listen to me carefully, whether or not your mother wants you to live with her is no reflection on you. None of this is your fault"

"Then why is she just walking away? Why didn't she talk to me or even say goodbye?"

Looking defeated Mr. Turner knew that tonight everything would come out. He didn't want it to be like this. He said something too low for Timmy to hear despite how eerily quiet the house was.

"What?"

"She's starting another family. Your mother is going to have a baby with the new man in her life."

That was more than Timmy could bear. The tears started flowing once again as the teen turned and ran out of the house. Ignoring his dad's cries Timmy Turner ran from his home. He had no idea where he was running to. A voice in his head told him to go to a friend's house for the night to distract himself until he'd calmed down. However his friends would either ask too many questions or loudly voice their feelings. None of them would just back off and let him think. In the end he found himself in the park by the playground. Not wanting to be found Timmy crawled into the tunnel of the jungle gym where he would spend the night wishing his fairies were with him. The next day he went home after his dad left for work to get his school bag. His fairies were most likely out looking for him but now he no longer wanted to see them. That day he was able to fool all of this friends and girlfriend into thinking everything was fine and that he had just been having an off day the previous day.

Later he returned home to begin a long discussion with his father about what life would be like for them now. At his father's request Timmy went to see his mother that weekend to meet her new boyfriend and to try and talk with her. It had proved to be a fool's errand as Mrs. Turner showed absolutely no intention of wanting to continue having a relationship with her son. She ignored him the entire time he was there, going as far as to lock him out of the apartment to spend time with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend was a kid, nineteen at the most. He tormented Timmy. His mother did nothing about it and instead agreed with everything the man said about her son. The fact that Timmy still wore pink even after outgrowing all the pink clothes his parents had bought before he was born was the man's favorite topic. He doubted Timmy would ever be a real man as girly as he dressed, called him an idiot for his grades, began calling him rude names, and ended up taking his hat. That was when his mother finally intervened; the hat had been something she had bought in anticipation of a daughter. She coldly told her son that he had always been a disappointment to her right from birth. With that she burned his hat in the sink, ignoring her son's pleas to stop but when he began yelling at her that was when she snapped. His mother began to yell and scream at him, the things she said were horrible and completely destroyed his self-esteem and made him feel worthless. The boyfriend joined in since it gave him an excuse to hit Timmy. Grabbing his things Timmy left as quickly as he could and refused to go back for anything. Later he learned that his mother's boyfriend had threatened to leave her if she didn't cut all ties with her husband and son to focus on caring for their unborn child.

So where were his fairies during all this? On learning that he would be receiving far more shots than his father had said Poof went on a rampage in Fairy World. When the other fairies just about had him back under control the toddler turned himself into an insect to hide all over Fairy World. After a few days of searching he was finally found, given his shots, given his check up, and returned home with his parents after nearly a week. Cosmo and Wanda were devastated to find out what had happened to their godchild and despite Cosmo's hilarious antics Timmy refused to smile. Wanda looked through Da Rules to try and find some way to help him but there was no way to do anything without breaking some rule.

His friends did what they could to help but Timmy ended up just learning to fake it. He learned to fool his friends, dad, godparents, and girlfriend into thinking he was doing better. It wasn't until he was ready weeks later that he finally opened up but by then a few other things popped up. For one his girlfriend left him for Francis of all people, next he learned that he would have to attend summer school, and his father came out with a secret of his own.

As it turned out the Dinklebergs had an open marriage that included taking a mutual lover, Mr. Turner. This was a long time coming, although it had been nothing but casual flirting and hinting before the Turner's divorce was announced. That was what made Timmy's dad come right out and tell his son about his situation. At the time he spoke to Timmy nothing was going on between his father and their neighbors. After all his son was going through he had decided to come right out about it to see if Timmy was opposed to the proposed relationship. This relationship would include his father living next door but he would start spending more time with his son, just not at home. Knowing his father was just as depressed as he was the teen decided not to deny his father the chance to be happy again. That didn't mean it didn't disgust the boy some but well at that point he had honestly stopped caring about what either of his parents did. Timmy would have full run of the Turner house from then on.

All of that happened two years ago. Timmy Turner and his band of misfit comrades were now almost finished with their sophomore year of high school with only a couple more days of finals left. Things had changed drastically in that short time. For instance A.J. had been the smartest of the bunch with Elmer coming in second while Timmy had always been a solid C student. Summer school right after his parents' divorce turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to him. Studying had proved to be a good tool to coping with his family and relationship problems and now he was sometimes scoring higher than A.J. At first it had irritated his friend who still remembered the time Timmy had beaten him in everything due to a wish but now he realized that it was actually nice having someone to compete with intellectually.

Timmy now had a baby sister named Hope, a cruel joke on his mother's part as she was hoping this child wouldn't be as disappointing as the first. His mother was proving to be as neglectful a parent to her daughter as she had been to her son. Often she called her son to babysit his sister for weeks at a time only to keep her for a few days and give her right back. Honestly he didn't mind watching his sister, she was a real joy to have around, and it kept his sister from being around his mother's ever changing boyfriends. To his dismay his mother was going to have another child who she would most likely dump on him as well.

The situation with his father and the neighbors was as awkward as ever. They had family nights a few times a week and had barbeques with their neighbors and friends. Mr. Turner gave his son a lot of freedom as long as the house wasn't destroyed. It was still a bit strange for Timmy to come home to a house with no one but his fairies in it but that just meant they invited all the other fairies around. Poof was now in fairy school along with his evil counterpart and had proved to be a great playmate for Hope, at least until she was older.

His fairies were a touchy subject now. Timmy remembered when he wished himself into the TV were he discovered he would have his fairies until his eighteenth birthday yet he couldn't help but feel like that was no longer his future. Poof hadn't been a factor back then so what if that had somehow changed the future. He felt that it was a stupid idea and yet he couldn't shake off the feeling. Of course he never regretted his decision of wishing for Poof's existence. Lately he'd been contemplating if he should say the sentence that would send them away so they could raise their son without worrying about him all the time. Cosmo and Wanda were amazing godparents who had done all they could to help him through his parents' divorce. They'd helped ease the pain.

The only good thing that had happened two years ago was the departure of the evil redheaded babysitter Vicky. She'd somehow gotten a full ride scholarship to a college on the other side of the country, much to the delight of every child she'd ever sat, and hadn't been back since. Rumor has it she'd married some rich guy though there was no confirmation from her family. Tootie no longer talked about her sister but instead enjoyed being spoiled by her parents now that Vicky was gone. She was now dating Remy, Francis was with Veronica, and Timmy's childhood crush, Trixie, was dating Elmer. Tootie did let it slip that her sister had been expelled from her first college for sleeping with a professor for a grade. While Timmy wouldn't put it against his ex-babysitter to do something like that, he doubted her resentful sister was the most reliable source.

Excluding his fairies these were topics the teen was now comfortable talking to his friends about although at the moment A.J. was more focused on comparing answers to their English final. Chester and Sanjay were more interested in the party that night at Elmer's house. True their finals weren't over yet but it was going to be nice to have a night to chill. As Elmer tried to explain for the thousandth time that it was a study party that Trixie had turned into a hang out party Tootie walked by looking flustered. Ever since her ugly duckling to above average looks transformation she'd been hanging out with Veronica and Trixie, both of whom were trying to get her to talk about what was bothering her. Most likely she and Remy were having yet another fight over something trivial, again. It was a near daily occurrence now.

Once Timmy and A.J. broke up the argument everyone headed over to Elmer's to hang out. Much to everyone's dismay Tootie brought Remy along to continue their argument from earlier over the color of an expensive handbag he bought for her. Francis had brought some booze for those not interested in studying like Chester. A.J., Timmy, and Elmer were the only one's trying to study with one of the other's yelling out questions every now and then until someone slipped A.J. and Elmer booze to end the studying. Timmy was harder to trick but Elmer would drink anything his girlfriend gave to him while A.J. didn't notice until he already had a buzz going. That isn't to say Timmy didn't drink every now and then, he was just worried he'd abuse the stuff. So before someone could pressure him into having a drink Timmy left knowing that Francis only ever brought enough to give everyone a nice buzz.

Walking into his house Timmy dropped his backpack on the couch and kicked off his shoes across the living room. Suddenly tired he dragged himself upstairs to his room. On his bed was a note from Wanda about staying in Fairy World until Monday. As he crawled into bed and fell asleep it registered in Timmy's mind that there was light coming from under the guest room door but just before falling asleep he dismissed the thought.


	2. Hints of Comfort

Timmy began to dream of his classroom from when he was ten. It was the same dream he'd been having for the past few months but each night something about it changed. At some point it would turn into a nightmare based on all of the past changes and it made him afraid to sleep. Sometimes the changes were subtle but other times they were sudden, so he never knew when it would finally become a full-fledged nightmare. The only solution he'd found to stop the dreams was never to sleep more than three or four hours at a time which didn't always work out.

His friends were all there too, all at their present ages, and sitting at their desks staring at the front of the room. Experience told him no one would pay any attention to him if he called out. They were all busy taking an exam that was always blank. Still Timmy couldn't help but look down at the one in front of him.

"Blank as usual."

This was the part he hated, the waiting. Every time he dreamed this part changed, sometimes it would seem like hours, other times mere seconds. So he sat and waited. Trying to tune out the sound of the pencils was all he could do. In the past the noise had driven him crazy to the point that he woke himself up screaming at everyone to just shut the eff up. Luckily his room was still sound proofed so he was able to avoid a very awkward conversation with concerned neighbors or his father. Ever since then he'd been waking up to find he'd bitten his tongue or lip in his sleep to stop from screaming.

Tonight wasn't as bad as the others since he only had to wait a half hour for the next phase of the dream. In the center of the board a seam ripped like the ones in the old sci-fi movies when someone rips the fabric of time in a botched attempt to take over the universe. Even though he was never able to see the other side Timmy seemed to know what was on the other end, a realm of never ending pain, dread, cold, and something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Something was waiting on the other side of the opening that was slowly getting wider. Timmy felt his heart begin to race in anticipation, while the creatures on the other side roared, growled, and licked their chops. Now the opening was four feet long, still too small for anything to come through completely. Past night terrors had taught him that there was no way out of the classroom, the windows didn't break or open and the door was locked from the outside, yet he still had a hard time keeping himself from running.

Suddenly something tried to force its girth through the opening, causing Timmy to jump out of his chair and knock the desk on him. To his horror whatever it was trying to come through, it was succeeding. In his fright the teen scrambled to free himself from the desk so he could run. Once he was able to stand he felt warm breath on the back of his neck. His heart skipped a few beats as he wheeled around to face the creature. What he saw shocked him. It was a younger, less menacing version of the monsters that haunted his nightmares.

The adults looked like skeletal dragons with canine skulls (no flesh or muscle, just bone) for heads. There were no eyes in the eye sockets which had never interfered with the monsters' vision but they did have tongues. They stank of burning, rotting flesh and blood. All over their bodies and necks were scars, burns, and oozing wounds. However the baby didn't have quite so many. It was also a peculiar shade of purple; most of the others were blackish. Only two other of the dragons weren't black but they rarely appeared.

Having lost interest, the youngling made its way to Crocker's desk, knocking an oblivious Sanjay over in the process. As he watched Timmy didn't notice the opening now stretched from floor to ceiling and was now growing wider. Or that a second, fully grown dragon was now standing in the room, that is until it shook the room with a heart stopping roar. Shaking from head to toe Timmy looked up at it. His instincts shouted for him to run but his fear kept him in place as the adult took a step towards him. What finally made him run was the overpowering smell of decaying flesh, barely escaping the monster's jaws snapping shut on him.

He ran towards the back of the room but never made it more than a few yards before a set of claws closed around him from his knees up to his middle, lifting him off the ground. As the claws tore into his flesh Timmy yelped. Drawing blood the creature tightened its grip until it cut his thigh down to the bone. He screamed. As the blood flowed down his leg the dragon released its grip. Timmy yelled when he hit the ground, hard before being swatted like a fly against the window.

Coughing he gripped his leg as more of the creatures came through the opening. The evil looks they gave him turned his blood cold. A third made its way over to him without so much as brushing against one of his friends. It was slightly larger than the one that had just maimed him, which is the only reason the smaller one backed off. If memory served, this one gave him burns that would end up closing up his wounds. Of all the dragons this was the one he hated most, even though it didn't give him the worst wounds. This one just meant he'd get to suffer at the hands of the others longer, allowing them all to have their fun.

He called out to his friends in hopes that this time one of them would react, surely this time one of them would help. But they continued to ignore him so he tried to drag himself away from the approaching monster. He wasn't able to get far before being grabbed by his arm and once again being lifted into the air. The other set of claws pressed red hot coals against his flesh. Despite his struggles the creature continued to press the coals against his torn flesh for thirty agonizing seconds. The boy's cries had no effect on the creature. As the others expressed their delight in Timmy's suffering the one holding him set him down on the floor. Then the rest began to fight amongst themselves as to which would get to torture him next. This part would drag on until he woke up, once every creature had gotten a second turn. Nearly every inch of his skin had been burned during that nightmare. That morning he swore he was going to die of fright or shock from the pain that had lingered for a moment after he woke.

Tonight, however, his nightmare had other plans. A new creature emerged from the other realm; it was more human like but far more terrifying. Never had it come through before, Timmy had only ever seen its eyes glowing at him through the rip; he'd hoped that was all he'd ever see of it. Forcing himself up Timmy fought against the pain to get as far from the new creature as possible, yet he knew it was pointless. It wrapped its clawed fingers around his ankle and began to pull him back towards the portal between the two realms. Timmy frantically started to grope at anything he was dragged past. When he was finally able to grab something it turned out to be A.J.'s leg. For the first time since the nightmares had begun someone reacted, A.J. looked down at his friend with a smile.

"Say Timmy, do you remember what Caesar was told to warn him about his impending death?"

"A.J. help me!"

"Come on, it's not that difficult of a question, you answered it at the study session remember? Just think it over for a second."

The monster realized that it was no longer dragging its victim so it gave Timmy's ankle a quick yank to try and get him to let go of A.J. When that proved ineffective it simply pulled harder until Timmy, A.J., and the desk began to move.

"Beware the Ides of March!" Timmy yelled.

A.J. frowned, "Timmy you know that sharing answers during an exam is cheating."

"YOU JERK YOU ASKED ME!"

"So that means you'll be getting –" right before his eyes Timmy watched as A.J. morphed into Mr. Crocker, "A SUPER F!"

As Crocker began to spaz out yelling about faeries he pried Timmy loose.

Now nothing was stopping the monster from dragging Timmy into the other realm. His friends suddenly started asking him questions on every subject and shook their heads when he was dragged past them. They called out words of encouragement or the answers, completely blind to the situation. In desperation Timmy clawed at the floor, leaving a blood trail as his fingernails were torn off. All the while the other creatures laughed and mocked him, one was even wearing his pink hat.

Soon he found himself at the opening between the two realms. His eyes darted around the room for anything he could use to save himself, but this time there was nothing. Tonight his nightmare would finally kill him. A voice in the back of his head said that when people died in their dreams, they died in real life. That wouldn't happen! Any second now he'd wake drenched in sweat yelling at the top of his lungs. Right?

A pair of creatures caught his eye, one was pink and the other was green. Relief rushed over him as he called to them for help. The pair looked at him lazily until he made a wish. Then they moved towards him as if to help but then the purple baby began to whimper and yelp as a full grown dragon began to bully it, the same one that had sliced his thigh open. In response the pink one charged towards the attacker with the green one in toe. They had abandoned him to his fate, right when he needed them the most.

Terrified Timmy began to cry, completely forgetting that none of it was real or that he could wake himself up if he focused. His feet began to pass through and a painful cold began to creep up his body, allowing an intense, nauseating fear to grip his heart. When his torso began to pass through he looked up to find his friends were all waving at him with smiles on their faces, as if he were going on a vacation. The cold made it difficult for him to think as his head passed through. And yet, he was fully aware that the end was coming. As soon as his fingertips passed through, he would be gone, lost to the depression growing in his heart.

Just as Timmy had accepted his fate something grabbed his wrist. The touch was comforting, warm. It began to replace the cold. A soothing voice reassured him as its owner pulled him back into the classroom, out of the monster's grip. Shakily he got to his feet before looking at his rescuer. Whoever it was, was barely a head taller than him. A hood drawn lower of their face kept Timmy from seeing them, making it hard to distinguish the gender of the person even after hearing their voice. A roar from the monster that had tried to take him nearly made him jump out of his skin as it came back through, teeth bared. The cold and fear once again began to spread as he realized his savior had only prolonged the inevitable and had also sealed his/her own fate.

"Shh, don't worry, you'll be alright." The hooded figure placed their hand on Timmy's shoulder.

Timmy whimpered. There was no way this wasn't going to end badly. All of the monsters, including the little family, were closing in on them. They had nothing to defend themselves with. It all seemed so hopeless.

"Easy. Nothing's going to hurt you."

The stranger stretched their hand in front of the both of them. A light seemed to glow from his/her palm that drove the dragons back to the opening to their realm. Now the stranger's free arm was around Timmy's shoulders, it gave him some comfort. His breathing slowed some.

"See? You're okay. There's nothing to be afraid of."

The light shone brighter, forcing the creatures back into their realm.

"There, nothing's left to scare you now."

Timmy turned to look at the person who'd saved him, to thank them and find out who it was. But he was waking up. His rescuer's identity would have to remain a mystery for now. The last thing Timmy Turner saw before waking up in his bedroom was a smile on the face of the person who'd saved him.

Reluctantly, Timmy woke up in his room, his sheets drenched in sweat. There was no sign of anyone in the room with him but that didn't stop him from believing that someone had come in and woken him up. However there was no one in the house besides him. Maybe Wanda had asked another faerie to check on him. She'd seen him going through a couple bad nights so it would make sense, but there was no sign of another faerie. He did see the numbers on his alarm clock glowing back at him. It was only 4am but the alarm was set for 5am. Groaning Timmy got up and groggily made his way to the bathroom to start his day.

An hour later he walked out of his room fully dressed carrying his sheets. In another hour he was suppose to meet A.J. for a last minute study session at school so he needed to waste some time. He threw the sheets in the washer, started it, and grabbed some breakfast. After waiting for the washer to finish and putting the sheets in the dryer Timmy went back upstairs to grab a textbook before heading off to school, never noticing the faint light glowing under the door of the guest bedroom.


	3. Yes, Things Can Get Worse

Timmy had arrived at the school a few minutes after A.J., the latter always having a hard time sleeping during exam week. Today's exams were in English Literature and World History so that's what the two boys quizzed each other over. When Julius Caesar came up during the history portion, much to Timmy's dismay, the warning Caesar was given did come up. Despite turning a bit pale A.J. didn't say anything, thinking it was just the result of a slight hangover from the drinking last night. They continued to quiz one another until the buses arrived making it too noisy to study in peace. Feeling confidant the two walked into the cafeteria to buy breakfast and wait on the others.

Not long after they finished eating and planning on skipping every class without an exam for the library, the rest of their little gang sat at the table. Chester was clearly sporting a hangover. Elmer and Sanjay began shooting questions at them, the drinking having ruined their plans not to cram again and making it difficult for them to concentrate. History was their first class and all too soon the minutes disappeared causing Chester to unleash a few curses as they made their way to class.

"Was the guy who tried to invade Asia but lost, Cleopatra or King Tut?" the blonde haired boy asked nervously. History was by far his worst subject.

"Neither, you're thinking of Alexander the Great." Timmy replied, trying to hold back a yawn.

"Aw man! I'm totally going to bomb this test! And my head hurts."

"You should have participated in last night's review session then instead of drinking three times as much as everyone else." The young genius said.

"Do not listen to him. He is just upset that you slipped him a drink." Sanjay told the blonde, "You know what alcohol does to him do you not? It causes him to make many mistakes."

Slightly hurt by the truth of the statement A.J. rushed to the classroom ahead of the others to look inside a textbook.

As they entered the classroom Elmer noticed the bags under Timmy's eyes that had nothing to do with the booze.

"Are you alright Timmy?"

"Later."

The boys took their usual seats in the front corner away from the teacher's desk. A.J. was already seated in the second row, Elmer sat in front of him, Timmy sat on A.J.'s left with Chester behind him, and Sanjay on Chester's left. After a short speech on corrections they're teacher gave out the exams. Looking down, Timmy's heart dropped as he saw a blank page staring back at him. What if he hadn't actually woken up? Was this just his nightmare torturing him on an all new level? There was no way he'd be able to handle that, not knowing if he was awake or not, he'd lose his mind.

Chester kicked his seat, moving the desk forward a couple inches. Instinctively Timmy looked up at the clock to see that ten minutes had already gone by. Underneath the blank page was the actual exam. Chuckling nervously at his overactive imagination, no doubt fueled by his lack of sleep, Timmy started to answer the questions on the exam.

After their exam the boys skipped their next two classes to hang out in the library. None of the teachers cared. Chester looked up answers for the history test on a computer while Sanjay looked for them in a textbook Chester took from the classroom and A.J. calculated scores. So far Chester hadn't gotten a single question right, Sanjay was getting 3/4 of the questions right, and A.J. hadn't missed any. Meanwhile Elmer was getting Timmy to talk about his sleepless night at a table away from the others.

"I know no one was able to slip you a drink so why are you so tired? Did you hook up with that girl Tootie introduced you to?"

"Nope"

"Wait, your dad and the neighbors weren't in the backyard again, were they?"

The two shared a disgusted look at the memory.

"Okay scratch that, so fess up, what kept you up?"

"I had a nightmare alright?"

"Oh. Well what was it about?"

When Timmy didn't reply and his friend's subtle tries to get him to open up again failed, Elmer decided it was a lost cause so he changed the subject.

"So when'd your dad move back into the house?"

"What are you talking about? My dad hasn't set foot in the house since Christmas."

"Well there was a light on in one of the other bedrooms last night when I was on my way home and it was on again this morning. Chester and I knocked on the door thinking it was you but no one answered."

"The light was on?" Timmy thought it had just been his imagination.

"You don't think someone was breaking into your house do you?"

Timmy scoffed, "like there's anything in my house worth stealing. Maybe my mom or her boyfriend came back looking for something she wanted. Remember when she sent that guy Ben to take some vases out of the garage?"

Elmer wasn't able to reply as the librarian began to yell at the girl who'd just entered drinking a can of coke. It was Tootie followed by Trixie and Veronica. Mr. Varner was a book fanatic who considered the library a holy place that students were continually trying to desecrate in any way they could. Bringing food into the library sent him into a fit that led to a long, loud lecture about how much damage could be done by the food item in question, how much money it would cost, and how it was inconsiderate to the few students (like A.J.) that used the library 'properly'. The record lecture had gone on for two class periods when a senior brought back a book without its cover and stained in mud.

Elmer went over to try to defuse the situation, which would be tough now that Tootie was giving Varner attitude. The girls were trying to talk Tootie into finishing her drink outside but she wouldn't do it. Dating the richest kid in town who had most of the teachers (and principal) wrapped around his finger by giving out bribes or generous donations had given Tootie **a lot** of freedom. Basically Tootie ran the school ever since she began dating Remy who had taught her money could buy friendship, something she hadn't had much of before. Plus Remy's parents had recently donated enough money to give the library a major upgrade so no book worshiping lonely old man was going to stop her from enjoying her coke. Knowing that the situation was under control Timmy moved to a secluded corner of the library by a window, leaving Elmer, Trixie, and Veronica to try to calm Tootie.

This was the only window in the library that always allowed phones to send and receive messages. Varner had a policy about cell phone usage, if he saw it he took it for the entire semester. Maybe Tootie was immune to the rules but Timmy certainly wasn't, not after getting into an argument with the old man when he was a freshman. Timmy had been using the school computer to read some news stories on an alternative News website for a class. The stories were comically fake and Varner logged him off the computer from his office. When he tried to log back in he found that he was locked out of the school's computers for three hours. Calmly he had explained the assignment to the librarian who didn't believe him. Not long after both their tempers flared and an argument ensued in which the teen had said a few that ought not to have been said. Mr. Varner had banned Timmy from the library for the rest of that school year.

He sent a quick text to his dad asking is he'd been in the house lately. The reply no so Timmy asked if his dad had finally decided on renting out a room in the house without giving him a warning. The reply came quick, his dad said he'd rented the room to a family friend who wasn't suppose to move in until late Friday night while Timmy was at a party. They would then be introduced the next afternoon when more ground rules would be laid out as Mr. Turner hadn't figured them out yet. Timmy's new roommate was having trouble back home and had contacted his dad in hopes of getting a place to stay for a few weeks. At the time it had seemed like a good idea to Mr. Turner to go ahead and rent them the room.

Annoyed Timmy turned the phone off, missing the text his father sent revealing the tenant's name. This wasn't going to be fun. His parents' friends weren't the best of people; generally they were only acquaintances or people they hadn't seen since before he was born. Plans to spend the next week with his friends were now ruined as his father would insist on him getting to know the tenant. Not only that but his faeries would have to be restricted to his room and brush up on their disguises. Poof was going to be a problem as he now preferred to wander the house acting like a human which would no longer be acceptable with another human in the house. He felt a headache coming on with all the preparations that he would have to make to avoid the family of faeries being discovered, but there was no time for that, A.J. was making his way over to Timmy to figure out his score on the test. Putting his phone back in his pocket Timmy put on a fake smile to hide his problem, for the time being. Finals were enough trouble for him and his friends without adding his new roommate into the mix.

A half hour later the fight with the librarian had been resolved with the arrival of Francis, who intimidated Varner more than anything else. A.J. had calculated history scores, and the group had relocated to an empty classroom. The teacher had put in a DVD before leaving after the group promised to stay put while he went out for a smoke.

A.J. wrote the scores on a clean sheet of paper before reading off the scores, " Alright Chester got a 37, Elmer an 88, Sanjay a 75, I got a perfect score, and Timmy got a 105."

Frowning A.J. looked at Timmy, clearly unnerved that his friend had gotten every question plus the bonus right while he'd made a stupid mistake by putting King Tut instead of Alexander the Great. The brains of the group glared at Chester, blaming him for the mistake on his test. Their next test was in an hour yet no one felt like studying. Lit would be over SAT words, short stories, and a couple of novels that they'd quizzed each other over all year, at this point even Chester could pull off at least a solid B. So the girls finalized plans for the party at Trixie's on Friday. Her father had hired a DJ, bought the decorations Veronica had picked out, bought the food Tootie had insisted on having, and had agreed that both he and his wife would not be home at all during the party. Currently only about fifty people were officially invited and they would each invite a friend who would probably invite another friend so the girls were planning on 200 people to show up. Of course her parents didn't know that or the plan to serve booze.

Come to think of it Timmy hadn't been officially invited by any of the girls until last night, probably because Remy and Tootie both hated him. Remy's hate wasn't surprising but her's, well that was a long story. Elmer had most likely convinced his girlfriend that it would mean a lot to Timmy to be invited instead of being the group's plus one. Not that it bothered him one way or the other, he had bigger problems.

The hour passed by uneventfully as did their test. In no time the school day was over. Tootie left with Trixie and Elmer in a limo Remy sent to pick her up, Veronica took the bus with Francis, Chester had to go straight home, and Sanjay was staying at the library to study with A.J. As tempting as it would be to spend the next few hours studying Timmy decided to pass. All he wanted was to get a couple hours sleep. So he walked home since riding the bus with Veronica and Francis was awkward, they sat in the back making out.

When Timmy got home the Striker Z was parked in the Turner driveway next to a beat up little car he didn't recognize. His father was leaning on the Striker Z's hood with a smile on his face. His son's shocked face at seeing the Dinklebergs in the back seat didn't seem to bother Mr. Turner at all.

"HI TIMMY!"

"Hey." He stood in front of his dad waiting for whatever news he had to share, but his father didn't say anything. He just kept smiling. After an awkward moment of his dad smiling at him Timmy broke the silence, "Well I'll…um…just head in then."

"Oh no you don't, we're going out for a nice meal with our neighbors."

"You've got to be kidding me, its 4:15!"

Mr. Turner's smile fell for a second before being replaced with a forced grin, "Don't be a spoil sport. Eating earlier is good for you."

"So is sleep which I didn't get much of so I'll just be on my way."

This time Mr. Turner had to block him from walking towards the house, "Now son don't be rude."

"I have to study for finals" he lied.

"Studying's for nerds now come on" before his son could protest Mr. Turner had pushed him into the passenger seat of the Striker Z, closed the door, and climbed into the driver's seat and drove off.

Uncomfortable didn't even begin to describe how the teen felt. Stuck in a car with his dad and his dad's lovers was the last thing he ever wanted to do. When he wasn't confined in a car with them Timmy had no problem being civil to them but now he was just doing everything he could not to look at them in the car's mirrors. This wasn't like his father to bring them along to eat out, so why now?

Soon the Turners and Dinklebergs were walking into the local diner. Timmy asked his dad if they could talk for a minute while the other couple went inside.

"Why couldn't I go into the house?"

"Well…I wanted us to be able to have a meal together!" his dad's smile clearly said that he thought that the lie would fool his son. However the look on Timmy's face said otherwise."Oh all right. Your roommate wanted the house to herself for a couple of hours to finish moving in."

"All I wanted to do was go upstairs and sleep, I wouldn't have been in his way."

Mr. Turner was torn between coming clean or putting off telling his son what was really going one. He'd been counting on delaying this moment until Saturday to avoid the inevitable fight.

"Your roommate isn't a 'him'."

"Whatever I still wouldn't have been in _her_ way. She isn't one of your psycho friends is she?"

"No she's not. You've known her for years."

Timmy knew his dad was trying to avoid a confrontation. There was something about this woman that he wasn't going to like. So that was why he'd brought the neighbors. Mr. Turner knew his son didn't like discussing things like this in front of them and bringing him to the diner was just an added precaution. With the scandals surrounding his parents' new lives the teen did everything within his power to avoid causing a scene in public.

The dinner was more awkward than any of them had anticipated. For a while the Dinklebergs had politely inquired as to how Timmy was doing in school and what his summer plans were to which they received the shortest answers the boy could come up with. Then the three adults talked about their jobs, the weather, any safe topic for a public conversation really. As for Timmy, who took no part in the conversation, was trying to figure out who his roommate could be. Unless his elementary school principal had finally gotten fed up with Mr. Crocker's mother or one of his friends' mothers was moving in he thought his dad was lying about him knowing the woman.

Finally the torture of pretending that all was well and good between them the four left to head back home. Strangely enough Mr. Turner didn't take the direct route home but instead took the scenic route through the neighborhoods. Timmy just stared out his window, tuning out the conversation between the adults as to what they would cook Saturday and Sunday for the new guest. They drove through the trailer park, A.J.'s neighborhood, Veronica's, Trixie's, and after a two hour drive finally started heading back in the direction of their own neighborhood. It wasn't until the car drove by Tootie's house that something clicked in Timmy's head. There was no way, was there? Rolling down his window the buck toothed teen leaned out of the car to look back at the house and felt his blood turn cold.

"Timmy dear, I don't think that's very safe." Mrs. Dinkleberg said cautiously.

Someone yanked him back into the car just as they passed a street sign that would have hit him.

"Not her, anyone but her." He muttered.

Nervous as to what was coming Mr. Turner tried to soothe his son, "Now just calm down son, I told you earlier who was moving in or did you not read that last text I sent you? It's only for – "

Ignoring his father Timmy had turned on his phone to read the text in question. His face turned pale. "Why the HECK would you think it was okay to not give me a warning that she was moving it?! How long have you known she was coming and not told me?"

"There's no need for language son –"

"When did you agree to this?"

"About a month ago."

Much to the surprise of the other three occupants in the car Timmy didn't say another word. His blood was boiling but it was the concern he felt for his faeries that kept him from yelling at his father. He hadn't forgotten them yet so they hadn't been discovered. Sure Wanda had said they were in Faerie World but they could have come back early. As long as it was just him at home when they came back everything would be fine, for a while anyway.

Tensions were high as the Striker Z pulled into the Dinkleberg driveway. Just as his father was about to say something, Timmy jumped out of the car, walked to the Turner residence, and went inside. Her car wasn't in the driveway so he wouldn't have to deal with the first meeting yet. Locking himself in his room Timmy yelled several choice curses as he punched a few holes into his wall. By the time he'd calmed down enough to sit down it was late but he wasn't tired. How could he sleep now? He was now living for who knows how long with the red headed she-devil who had turned several years of his life into a living hell.


	4. She-Devils Come In Pairs

All that night scenarios filled Timmy's mind as to what he would do when she came back to the house. He wanted to get the first meeting over with as soon as possible, preferably without anyone else around. If they were going to be living together Timmy wanted her to know that she was not going to push him around anymore, that he wasn't afraid of her. Okay maybe she did still scare the crap out of him but he wasn't about to let it show in front of her. There was also the little problem of hiding his new weaknesses in front of her. Last thing he needed was for her to use them against him.

Minutes turned into hours as he waited in his room listening for a car pulling up, the front door opening, or a creak from the stairs to let him know she was there. It wasn't until his alarm clock started blaring that he realized he'd dozed off. His body ached from a combination of sitting upright all night and lack of sleep. Getting up he walked over to the door that led into the hallway, opened it, and looked down the hallway to see if the guest room light was on. It wasn't, but that didn't mean much. Next he looked out the window facing the street to see if there was a car parked in the driveway. The driveway was empty and since the garage was full of junk neither of his parents wanted he concluded that he was alone in the house. So for now facing Vicky would have to wait but he still had to avoid telling his friends finding out she was living with him, at least for the time being.

Timmy changed into fresh clothes, washed his face off in the sink, and then looked up in the mirror. What he saw was a stone faced boy with bags under his eyes, pale face, and eyes that were filled with anger, pain, and sorrow.

"Just grin and bear it Turner, grin and bear it." Talking to himself made Timmy chuckle, maybe all those sleepless nights along with news of his babysitters return had finally made him lose it a bit. At this rate he'd have to admit himself into a nut house by graduation.

After writing a quick note to his faeries that he now had a roommate Timmy grabbed some poptarts before riding his bike over to A.J.'s. The boy genius would be awake and they could kill some time together, probably quizzing over the day's exam. When he go there A.J. was outside about to get on his bike to go who knows where. After talking for a few minutes they decided to head over to Sanjay's house. The morning workout his stepfather made him complete everyday should be over by the time they got over there. By the time they got to the Indian boy's house and stopped to get some real breakfast it was after 7 so the trio headed to school. Once there they waited in the library for the bell to ring, Elmer and Chester having opted to study on their own the night before. The exam was during first period then they were free to leave and enjoy the first unofficial day of summer vacation.

Much to the entire classes delight the exam was a joke. The questions were either extremely obvious or had a million right answers. One of the questions was 'why do you park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?'. It was the first time in the history of the gang's friendship that Chester ever turned in a test first. By far the best surprise was being told they could leave right after they were done; something A.J. pointed out was a clear violation of school policy. Instead of going with his friends to have a movie marathon Timmy went home for some much needed sleep. He reasoned that his roommate would be out looking for a job or maybe even starting one instead of being at his house. For the sake of every child within the limits of Dimmsdale he hoped she didn't go back to babysitting.

Only getting seven hours of sleep in the past few days was finally taking its toll on the teen. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open and focused as he biked back to his house. By the time he got up the driveway he was practically dead on his feet. Not bothering to put his bike up Timmy entered his house. Not thinking he could make it up the stairs before falling asleep Timmy laid down on the couch with his feet dangling over one of the arms before kicking his shoes off. Then he dozed off, hoping he didn't have a nightmare.

A scene was starting to take shape, distorted desks, windows the size of dimes, a door starting to materialize on the wall, and ghosts hovering in all of the seats. There was a faint should of pencils scratching. Out of nowhere came the sound of a whimper, it took the teen a minute to realize the noise had come from him. Just as everything was starting to come into focus a new voice made itself heard.

" 'Dad's letting a psychotic bitch stay here as my new roommate. Avoid at all cost.' "

An old reflex caused Timmy to jump which led to him falling off the couch and banging his head against the coffee table. With a curse he pushed himself up so he was sitting against the couch to look at the person who'd spoken. Standing before him was a familiar red head holding the note he'd left on his nightstand. It didn't surprise him that she'd gone into his room; it was a typical Vicky move.

"Nice to know some things never change" he grumbled.

"So let me guess, Tootie got tired of you, the bimbo you've been chasing after won't give you the time of day, so now you're screwing that crazy blonde who's obsessed with you?" Crumpling up the note she threw it at Timmy, "or do you just bang what you can get?"

He just glared back at her without a word.

"Calm down Turner it was a joke. Thought it would be a good idea to pick up where we left off." Vicky sat down on the coffee table facing him with a wicked smile spreading across her face as he scrambled back onto the couch as far from her as it would allow. And there went his plan to hide his fear of her.

"Hilarious."

"So who was the note for?"

"My friends, I forgot to put it on the door this morning." He lied.

That only seemed to amuse her further. Surprisingly she hadn't gotten upset at him calling her a bitch. Maybe college life had changed her for the better.

"Right, because just telling them at school wouldn't have made any sense at all." Grabbing the remote Vicky moved to the other end of the couch and began to do some channel surfing.

Timmy couldn't help but stare at her in amazement. This wasn't the woman he'd grown up knowing at all, she was teasing him, well maybe mocking was a better word, instead of making every effort to make his life miserable. It wasn't just her personality that had changed but her looks too. She wasn't sporting her trademark ponytail or outfit anymore. Now she let her hair hang down and unlike her sister's naturally straight hair Vicky's had a slight wave to it. Instead of her tight fitting green shirt she wore a looser university shirt. Her black jeans had been replaced by what looked like a pair of men's shorts. She also had a tan, had she been going to school on the coast? Realizing he was still staring Timmy looked away from the red head. There was nothing that would make him happier than to go up to his room but he'd promised himself they'd talk.

"So, how long are you staying?"

"Indefinitely."

He sighed. Of course she wasn't just staying for a few weeks. Not that his dad would care about that, heck at some point she'd probably be living there rent free after sweet talking Mr. Turner.

"Afraid I'm gonna take over your bachelor pad Twerp?"

"More like you're going to go back to torturing, humiliating, and nearly killing me."

"The thought might have occurred to me once or twice but now that we're roommates I can't very well go around doing that anymore can I? You'd get me kicked out."

How was he going to kick her out? His dad would make that call not him. Just because Mr. Turner had given him free reign didn't mean he'd take his son's word over his ex-babysitter.

Vicky couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. "He didn't tell you? Well get ready for the shock of your life Turner," like he hadn't had enough of those, "Your old man's gonna let you play landlord while I'm here, so if you decide to kick me out I've got nowhere to go."

"Wait, so you're telling me that if I told you to get out right now you would?" He looked at her in complete surprise.

She just shrugged her shoulders. "Like I said I've got nowhere to go if you kick me out."

"What about your parents' place?"

It happened so fast Timmy wasn't sure he'd actually seen anything. Just for a second he swore he saw pain flash in her eyes. Not the kind of pain that comes from a break up or ending a long standing friendship but something far worse. Something like what he was going through himself. However it disappeared so quickly that he thought he was just seeing things. Her parents had probably broken all ties with her after finally growing back bones.

"Don't have a room there anymore." Not finding anything worth watching she turned off the TV and sat back down on the coffee table. "So Mister Big Bad Landlord are you going to go ahead and lay down some ground rules now or just make them up as you go?" Her tone was incredibly sarcastic.

"Is there even a point?"

"Depends."

"On what?" He was getting frustrated. All she was doing was mocking him, trying to make him break, not that he'd give her the satisfaction.

"Can I pay in ways other than money?" She asked suggestively.

Having ice water poured on him first thing in the morning wasn't Timmy's ideal wakeup call but it was the penalty for being the last one sleeping at Chester's trailer. His friends laughed as he threw fistfuls of ice at them. It was a rule the blonde had made up one day when Elmer slept in until 2 in the afternoon after a Crash Nebula marathon. Chester threw some dry clothes at Timmy.

After the disastrous conversation with Vicky the buck toothed teen had retreated to Chester's house to get away from her. He had been wrong, she hadn't changed a bit. She wasn't going be a tyrannical dictator this time around; instead she was going to play mind games. In truth he would have preferred the dictator version since he knew what to expect. Now she would be unpredictable and that was a terrifying thought.

Not that he'd bothered telling anyone yet. There was one more person he wanted around before he told everyone about Vicky, her younger sister. From the way Vicky talked about her parents' house they didn't know she had moved back to Dimmsdale and even though things between him and Tootie had been rocky at best Timmy still felt obligated to let her know her sister was back. Francis, Veronica, and Trixie never really had to suffer at the hands of the evil babysitter so it wouldn't matter if they were around to hear the news.

After a few hours of TV, A.J. figuring out everyone's GPA, and turning down the food Chester's dad made, the boys left for Trixie's house. The plan was to set up for the night's party with the girls. As far as they knew Francis and Remy weren't coming to help out since the former had a makeup test at school while the latter couldn't be bothered. So at least there wouldn't be any major drama with Tootie until later that night.

When they got to Trixie's they found Tootie waiting impatiently in the doorway, hands on her hips, acting like they'd jeopardized the entire party by not arriving earlier. Experience had taught them to mumble something that could be taken as apologies then ignore her as she went off on a rant. Trixie smiled apologetically as they walked into the living room while Veronica just looked relieved. Tootie must have been complaining about how the boys were taking their sweet time and yelling at Tootie to tell Elmer to hurry up. As the bespectacled girl huffed off into another room the others sat down to talk.

" So Timmy, did you meet your mysterious roommate yet?" Trixie asked from the love seat next to Elmer, who all of a sudden found a spot on the wall very interesting.

"Shouldn't we be focusing on setting up for tonight?"

That was all the others needed to start bombarding him with questions. He was obviously hiding something and they were determined to get it out of him. At first the lie was that they hadn't met yet then it changed to him catching a glimpse of an unknown person driving off that morning then to an awkward stand off some guy but when Chester asked about the guy Timmy let slip that his roommate was a woman. Now that the topic had come up Timmy found it very hard to say anything. Desperate to put off the conversation he tried to talk about what was going where for the party only to have the others yell over him. Next he tried to reason with them that Tootie would be pissed when she came back to see that they were just messing around. However the others didn't seem to mind as long as they got him to talk.

Admitting defeat Timmy sighed, "okay I met her yesterday after school."

"So that's why you ditched us! She's gotta be college age right?" The blonde boy was excited by the thought of a hot college girl living in town. Already he was planning to make every possible excuse to hang out at the Turner house.

Timmy shook his head at his friend, knowing what was going through his head. If only he knew.

Veronica wanted to know if she was from Dimmsdale, Trixie asked what college she'd gone to, while the boys were mainly interested in what she looked like and if she'd be inviting more college kids to the house. They all wanted answers but no one let him get a word in. Soon they were building wild theories about the mystery roommate. That is until Tootie came to see why no one was working.

"What are you guys doing? We've only got a few hours to set up before the caterers and band show up."

"Calm down Tootie we still have to eat lunch." Trixie was trying to soothe her friend's anger. "Besides we're all curious about the –"

"About the college girl Timmy's shacking up with!" Chester interrupted.

Obviously he could have phrased that better but the whole gang, excluding Timmy, knew that Tootie still had a thing for him. She had been upset with him for not immediately confiding in her about his parents and later became furious when he didn't talk to her about it. The thing she had going on with Remy was just to make her feel powerful, with the added bonus of ticking off Timmy. Making Tootie think her ex had gotten over his recent problems enough to get back to dating was an opportunity Chester was not going to pass up. After the way she'd treated them for two years it was nice to rub something in her face that would piss her off.

"WHAT?!"

Chuckling nervously A.J. tried to diffuse the situation, "heh, um, actually what Chester's trying to say if Mr. Turner rented the guest room out to a woman that we're all assuming is a college student. I'm sure he'd be happy to explain if we'd all give him a chance to talk," looking at his friend and silently pleading with him to comply, "right Timmy?"

Much to his displeasure Timmy found himself being towered over by Tootie from his seat on an ottoman. She was glaring daggers at him, arms on her hips, and reminding him why he's broken up with her in the first place. Rolling his eyes he pushed back so that the wheeled ottoman moved away from Tootie, Timmy stood up and headed for the kitchen. Sanjay, Elmer, and Veronica having already retreated there upon Tootie's return, only to have her follow the buck toothed teen. Leaving A.J. and Trixie looking concerned about what was sure to follow the tension while Chester was looking forward to a confrontation. But that was only because Timmy was the only one Tootie couldn't intimidate.

Leaning against the island Timmy looked back at his ex. She was obviously angry at him for walking away but it wasn't like she'd asked him anything. Well he supposed it was now or never to tell everyone, though he felt a little guilt that it might dampen the mood for the party. So Timmy took a deep breath and opened Pandora's Box.

"Vicky's my roommate."

It took a moment for his words to sink in and even longer for them to realize he wasn't playing some sick joke. Seven shocked faces slowly changed into horror, shock, and disgust, the latter belonging to Tootie. She looked at him in utter disgust at the news. The others found themselves speechless at how he could keep himself so calm and composed. Well more composed than they were at the news. Before anyone else could find their voice Tootie started shouting.

"You're not seriously going to live with her?! She's a complete psycho!"

"It's not like I have much of a choice, my dad's the one that made the call."

Chester was the next to find his voice, "Well couldn't you, oh I don't know, maybe get him to change his mind?" he asked sarcastically.

"I doubt he'd listen."

"And why is that my friend?" Sanjay asked.

The boys exchanged a knowing look. A.J. crossed his arms then said, "because Vicky knows how to manipulate adults into letting her get away with child abuse"

No one could argue with that, or the fact that the Turners had always been the easiest pair of adults for the she-devil to manipulate.

Elmer smiled weakly. "Maybe it won't be so bad"

When everyone stared at him, or in Tootie's case glaring daggers, Elmer's face turned red. His muttered apology went unheard as Tootie stated in a matter of fact tone that they should just frame her older sister for a crime that would get her sent to prison.

The stares of disbelief she got in reply didn't deter her from the would be plan.

"What? It's not like she hasn't done anything to deserve it."

"Well… Yeah, but we could get in big trouble if anyone finds out." Trixie replied in a low voice.

Staring at everyone in turn the black haired girl was frustrated at their lack of support. "Not if everyone keeps their traps shut."

Just as the others began to talk all at once about how they wouldn't blab Timmy held his hands up to get them to be quiet. "Wait a second Tootie. I'm the one that has to live with her and no one else. It's not a situation I want to be in but sending her to prison is a bit extreme."

"Extreme?!" Tootie's voice was getting louder, Trixie and Veronica were trying to calm her down but it wasn't doing much good. "She's been making us all miserable for six years, getting away with things that would land anyone else in jail and you think it's too extreme?!"

He was trying to keep Tootie from bullying the others into doing something potentially illegal. It was obvious her sudden outburst was making them all uncomfortable.

"And we should let you come up with this plan? She's your sister; she was screwing up your life a lot longer than the rest of us, so why do we have to help you get revenge?"

"Okay why don't we get started with decorating? Tootie, Veronica and I will set up in here and you boys can take care of the backyard." Trixie said nervously as she stepped between the two of them in a desperate attempt to avoid the fight that was building.

Tootie just shoved Trixie out of her way so she could get right in Timmy's face. She wanted to intimidate him and was only infuriated when he didn't so much as flinch. Instead he looked down at her with disappointment clearly written on his face. The girls attempted to tug Tootie back to the living room while Chester tried to pull his friend back towards the yard. However neither teen was going to be the first to back down.

"My sister's a manipulative bitch who talked herself out of being expelled from three schools for sleeping with a ton of professors. She might not be making our lives miserable anymore but that doesn't mean she's changed. My parents want nothing to do with her after some scandal she was involved in before she even left Dimmsdale. And you're going to stand there and defend her, like two years away have done something to make up for all she's done?"

Despite having a very angry, red faced girl mere inches from his face Timmy managed to keep himself under control.

"I'm not trying to defend her, I'm trying to defend _them_," motioning to the half dozen other people in the room who hadn't moved since Tootie's rant began, "from you. We all know Vicky was manipulative but you're getting to be just as bad as her. You run around town throwing your boyfriend's money at everyone to get what you want or you intimidate them until they have no choice but to do what you want. How does that make you any better than her? What gives you the right to judge anyone since you've become a bitch just like her?"

Tootie's face turned white as a sheet by the time he was done. Timmy hadn't forgotten all the crap he'd gone through with his babysitter but if he'd learned anything in the past two years it was that no one had the right to judge another person and condemn them for anything, after all people could change until they were unrecognizable, whether that be for better or worse, at any time. Take Tootie for example, two and a half years ago she'd been a sweet, naïve, happy girl who'd finally gotten the boy she had a major crush on to date her. Now she was a rude, manipulative little brat who thought everyone should bow down and worship her because she was dating one of the wealthiest guys in town. He'd also seen a few people change for the better like Francis and Trixie. They had both mellowed out over the past couple years, one was practically a teddy bear while the other realized that there was more to life than popularity, money, and looks. Their changes weren't as extreme as the people who became worse but it was still something, so now he did his best not to judge people, especially for their past.

The white faced girl in front of him took a step back before slapping him so hard across the face that he fell to the floor. "Don't you _ever_ compare me to her, because I swear if you do Timmy Turner I will make your life a living hell. There's a lot of damage I can do in two years."

To her amazement the expression on his face hadn't changed at all, he hadn't even flinched when she slapped him. Then he smirked. Chester and A.J. thought he'd finally cracked from the stress while the other boys thought he was just trying to make Tootie even angrier. Trixie had taken the opportunity to push Tootie towards the living room. She'd gotten the other girl to the doorway when Timmy spoke up.

"Is that right? Well I've got news for you Tootie," pushing himself up off the floor he felt Chester grab the neck of his shirt to keep him from going after the black haired girl. "My life's already a living hell."


	5. Just One Night

For the next few hours Tootie became unbearable. She seemed determined to start another fight with Timmy. If she wasn't dropping rude, and at times cruel, comments about him then she was changing her mind on how the backyard should be set up. Once she realized that wasn't enough, Tootie began verbally attacking his friends.

The girls had been trying to calm her down by giving her their support. They told her that Timmy had been wrong to say she was becoming her sister. That she wasn't manipulative, it was just that she was tired of being pushed around by everyone else. Perhaps at times she was a little too aggressive, which was why he'd accused her of intimidating others. When Tootie started going after Elmer Trixie put her foot down. Now all Tootie could do was glare at them.

Outside the boys were concerned by Timmy's silence. How he felt about his ex was one of the few things he didn't keep bottled up. At first there was an awkward silence as the gang glanced at him. The place where Tootie had slapped him had left an angry red hand print on his cheek. A.J. had tentatively suggested putting some ice on it, but only received a shrug in response. After a while Chester began to voice his opinion. The pigtailed princess was in denial about everything Timmy had said because deep down she knew he was right. Sanjay and Elmer agreed. They had a hushed conversation with Chester while setting up lanterns and lights in the back corner of the yard.

Trixie was the one who finally declared the yard done before Tootie could rearrange it again a little before 5. All remaining set up would be done by the caterers and band once they arrived. Since Tootie was still complaining that Timmy hadn't yet apologized, the boys snuck out of the yard and headed for Elmer's house. A couple hours of bossing around people who had no choice but to listen would lessen her anger enough for them to enjoy the party. Upon their arrival Chester told A.J. and Timmy what he and the others had been talking about.

"Hey Timmy that was a pretty gutsy thing you did calling Tootie out. Me and the guys were talking about what you said –"

"I wasn't part of that conversation!" the boy genius interrupted.

"Because you were too afraid of her to talk about it. Anyway we were just saying that you were totally right about her."

"But couldn't you have chosen a better time to say it?" Elmer whined. "Now she's taking it out on Trixie and Veronica and, unlike you, they can't stand up to her like that."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Elmer is right, today was not the best time." Sanjay said.

The blonde rolled his eyes, "What, because of the party? Dudes Trixie's throwing it not Tootie, it's not like she can keep us from going."

"Well technically speaking she can, everyone knows Tootie's second in command tonight, so if she wants us out we're out, well except Elmer." A.J. replied.

Elmer shook his head, "That's not what I meant."

"What was I suppose to do Elmer? Let her torment everyone? I lost my temper and I'm sorry, I'll apologize to Trixie and Veronica later."

A.J. looked at his brunette friend for a second, trying to phrase the next question carefully, "What about Tootie?"

Timmy shrugged. He saw no point in apologizing to her. It wasn't like she'd let him off with just an apology, she'd want him to make it up to her and take it back. And he wasn't about to do either.

After a few minutes of silence Chester changed the subject.

"So is Icky Vicky as bad as when she left?"

"More bark and less bite as far as I can tell."

"Woah, so it's like she and Tootie switched personalities?"

"Not really."

"Come on man give us some detail!"

"I would prefer not knowing," Sanjay muttered.

"The conversation wasn't that long, I'll let you know Sunday."

"What happens between now and Sunday?" A.J. asked.

"My dad's throwing some kind of Get-To-Know-Vicky party tomorrow."

"Wow, sorry about that man, anyway we can help? Maybe get you out of it?"

Smirking, Timmy said, "Yeah you could all come too and say hi to her. It'll be just like old times."

All of his friends looked as though he'd asked them to do some unspeakable act.

"Dude, you're our friend and all, but we value our lives too much."

By the time the boys got back to Trixie's there were fifty or sixty people already partying. Elmer and Sanjay went to find Trixie, Chester dragged A.J. over to a group of girls from another district, and Timmy made his way to the back of the yard where some games had been set up. For the next hour the buck toothed teen hung out with people from other school districts. They asked about the red mark only to laugh when he told them he'd called a girl out for being a brat. When they asked if the girl was at the party, Timmy pointed to the one in pig tails who was bossing the waiters around. When she caught the group looking her way then bursting out laughing Tootie really lost it, picking up a couple soda cans she threw them at the group. It freaked a couple of them out but the rest just held the cans up in thanks, mocking her from a safe distance. And that was why girls seemed hesitant in getting too close to Timmy. If he talked to the guys they came with, the girls walked off and didn't come back until he left. Not that he blamed them, Tootie might be a small and nerdy looking but she made up for it with her tough girl attitude.

He hadn't seen his friends since they arrived, the reason being that he was trying to spare them anymore of Tootie's fury. If he didn't speak to them she'd think Timmy was mad at them for siding with her. Every time they tried to talk to him, he walked off to talk with another group. While getting away from another attempt on A.J.'s part to get him to hang out with their gang, Timmy found himself talking to a group of theatre kids. After a few minutes of small talk he noticed a girl looking at him. She was talking to an older teen, judging by the way he was guzzling beers, he was a graduating senior. Noticing she'd been caught staring she looked away and gestured to her cheek then back at Timmy. A lot of people had been doing that all night, asking their friends why he'd gotten slapped. They must be really bored if they had to resort to coming up with theories about who he got the red hand print on his face from.

To his surprise her companion just pointed at Tootie, shook his head, and pushed her Timmy's way, encouraging her to go ask him herself. She seemed too embarrassed. Timmy went back to listening to the theatre kids complain about some play their director wouldn't let them perform. A moment later he felt someone tapping his shoulder.

When he turned around Timmy saw the same girl smiling up at him. She was very cute. She was also a tiny little thing, barely five foot, but there was something about her that screamed 'don't underestimate me'. The t-shirt she wore had a stick figure tripping another as a zombie ran after them. There were freckles spreading under both her green eyes and over the bridge of her nose. Nervously she tucked a strand of her short blonde hair behind her ear before introducing herself.

"Hi, I'm Ryan." Her voice was soft and sweet, it made Timmy blush.

"I –…uh…..I'm Turner… I-I mean Timmy!" Confused at his sudden inability to form coherent responses Timmy was about to walk away to bang his head against a wall when she started giggling.

"Nice to meet you Timmy, or maybe I should call you Turner."

"Heh, sorry about that."

Pointing to his cheek, "so what happened?"

"Someone didn't want to hear the truth."

"Uh-huh, sure you didn't just call her the wrong name?"

Timmy shrugged, "in a way, yeah."

She tried to hold in a laugh, "Girls don't like that much but I'm sure you realize that now, right Turner?"

He couldn't help but smile. Not the little half smiles that didn't reach his eyes but a real smile. It was a nice feeling.

"So, besides making girls mad, what else do you do for fun Timmy Turner?"

Before he could answer the boy she'd been talking to before walked up holding a red plastic cup in each hand. He threw one arm around Ryan, nearly spilling the cup's contents on her.

"Hey Rye I'm tired of holding your drink, "he pushed the cup in his free hand into her hands, "So did you ask him?"

He was drunk. Timmy noticed that he and Ryan looked similar, same blonde hair, same face shape, he was a couple inches taller, and his eyes were blue.

"Turner this is my brother, Seth, he just graduated."

"Yup, goodbye public school system, hello keg parties and college girls!" Seth threw his fist into the air yelling at the top of his lungs. People nearby were laughing at him or, in the case of the theatre kids, getting away from him.

The tiny blonde looked embarrassed at her brother's outburst. "I'm going to go find somewhere for you to sit down," she looked at Timmy as she steered her brother back towards the house, "see you later."

As they walked off Timmy couldn't stop a goofy grin from spreading across his face. Seth couldn't walk straight. He kept throwing his fist up in the air and cheering, sometimes yelling more college perks. Just before they got to the house the pair started to stagger to one side, at which point Ryan ducked out from her brother's hold and let him fall to the ground. Timmy found himself chuckling.

Someone came up behind him and put him in a head lock.

"Hey look at you, flirting with death twice in one day!" Chester said excitedly, giving his friend a noogie, "you got a death wish?"

He struggled to get out of his friend's grip, only to have Chester tighten his grip before letting him go. "I wouldn't call the first time flirting."

"Yeah, more like provoking an injured, scared, cornered beast." A.J. had his hands in his pockets as he spotted said beast shouting at a familiar snobby rich boy who'd just showed up.

The blonde shrugged, "Anyway Tootie bought that you were mad at us so now that you've accomplished that mission stop avoiding us. Who was chick you were talking to Turner uh I – I mean Timmy?" A.J. laughed at Chester's imitation of Timmy's word fumble, "What was that? Did you forget how to talk to girls?"

"Shut it."

His friends continued to make fun of his loss of words for several more minutes. Then they asked him about Ryan. There wasn't much to tell but his friends persisted. It'd been a long time since they'd seen him smile so much. However all good things must come to an end, and Tootie was the means of bringing said end. Done yelling at her boyfriend she was now heading their way to take out her remaining anger on Timmy. The second she was within hearing distance the trio's mood did a complete one-eighty.

Standing in front of them, arms crossed over her chest, Tootie interrogated them about what they'd been talking about. Deciding the truth would only bring more grief, they lied. They'd been talking about going to a comic book convention that summer. She didn't buy it but with no proof they were lying there wasn't much she could do about it. She sighed and frowned as she said that she didn't appreciate Timmy telling everyone she was a brat or that she'd been the one that slapped him. People were whispering behind her back. Her mood change would seem odd to an outsider given she was shouting not too long ago but the boys knew better. This was Tootie trying to manipulate them by showing her old self, the self that was sweet and lonely. When she'd first started doing it, it worked like a charm every single time, now they just played along.

Just as she was asking the buck toothed boy to go around explaining that he'd just vilified her out of anger, someone else walked up to them. It was the tiny blonde girl with the zombie shirt. Tootie was speechless that someone would interrupt her conversation but not as much as when Ryan didn't leave when she glared.

"Excuse me this is a private conversation. Could you please give us a minute?" Her tone was anything but polite.

"Yes because a party of drunken teenagers listening to bad music is the perfect place for a private conversation," Tootie was taken aback at the girl's boldness while the boys were impressed, "I'm here for him actually," she pointed to Timmy.

"Like I said, I'm talking to him so scamper off until we're done." Tootie waved her hand dismissively at the blonde girl who just ignored her.

"I'd rather talk to him now before you smack him again."

"You little bit– "

Tootie wasn't able to finish her statement as Timmy grabbed Ryan's wrist and led her away and Chester 'accidentally' knocked the bespectacled girl over to follow his friend. A.J. brought up the rear, fearfully glancing back at Tootie. The blonde boy then led the scared boy genius away. Timmy led Ryan into the house, where everyone was eating, before letting go of her wrist. She seemed amused by what had just happened.

"So that was the girl that slapped you?"

"Yeah."

"There's history between you two isn't there? Jealous ex?"

He chuckled, "more like my psycho ex."

"She seems like a lovely girl, I'd say you deserved getting slapped." Ryan teased.

They found a quiet corner in the kitchen to talk. Timmy leaned against the wall and sighed.

"Then she was a saint back when we first started dating."

"Personality change?"

"Pretty much."

"So, Turner, tell me why the two of you split. Usually lovers' spats make for strong relationships." It had been an innocent question but the look on his face made her regret asking.

After a very awkward silence the buck toothed teen spoke up, "I didn't want to confide in her, she got tired of waiting and left."

"Sorry."

He looked down at the girl in front of him. She was staring at the floor, clearly uncomfortable with the change in mood. It was a touchy subject and she knew it.

"I'm over it she's not, no big deal. Besides, if it hadn't happened I wouldn't be here talking with you." When she looked up at him, Timmy's heart skipped a beat. The smile on her face was adorable, as was the blush spreading across her cheeks. Without knowing it he was smiling back at her.

Nervously Ryan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looked down at the floor then back up at him. The way she looked at him made Timmy feel lighter than he had since everything fell apart. It gave him hope that things could get better. So he decided to forget about everything for the rest of the night; forget about the drama with his parents, forget about his psycho ex-girlfriend, forget the nightmares, just forget about all the bad things that had happened in the last two years. Tonight he would lower the walls he'd carefully built up and enjoy himself. With that thought in his mind he leaned down and kissed Ryan, and to his surprise she kissed him back.


	6. Sisterly Love

By the time Timmy got back to his house it was five in the morning. He'd biked home after attending another party across town. For an hour he'd been able to enjoy himself at Trixie's party with Ryan and his friends, that is until Tootie's constant glares and awful behavior drove them out. Seth had insisted that they head across town, where he and Ryan were from, to another party instead of heading home. A.J. wasn't too thrilled with the idea but a little convincing on Chester's part, especially when he pointed out that it was doing their friend some good being around the blonde, changed his mind.

The other party was mainly made up of graduating seniors celebrating the end of their high school careers. Seth introduced the gang to a new drinking game that he insisted they all play at least once. A bunch of shot glasses, all filled with different concoctions, were set up in a circle on a table with an empty beer bottle in the middle. Some of the glasses were filled with alcohol, some with non-alcoholic drinks, and some contained rather disgusting mixtures. All one had to do was spin the bottle and drink whatever glass it pointed to. Chester pressured A.J. into going first but was disappointed when the genius ended up with a glass of juice, then spun a glass of beer for himself. When it was Timmy's turn his friends expected him not to play since he didn't drink often, however he ended up spinning the bottle. The drink had been disgusting. It tasted like sour milk with hot sauce and peppermint mixed in.

Besides several more turns at the shots roulette game, the gang spent the next few hours playing pool, playing games on the Wii (or watching), talking to other people at the party, at one point someone put a movie on, or learning a new game. For the brunette of the group a good portion of the night was spent getting to know Ryan. She was a tiny person with a huge personality who wasn't afraid of speaking her mind, thanks to having three older brothers. The tiny blonde was also fairly blunt with all the questions she asked him, though she did stay away from his apparently messy break up with Tootie and particulars on his parents' divorce.

Before they left Chester invited Ryan to hang out with them the next week. With no one sober enough to give them a lift home the gang had to walk back to Trixie's to get their bikes before heading home.

Timmy only made it far enough inside his house to get to the couch where he passed out. For a while he didn't dream at all. When a dream did start to take shape it was the same nightmare with a slight modification. A blurry figure occupied a previously unoccupied desk. He couldn't make out much about the figure other than they were blonde and not much bigger than the others. Just as the figure started to take shape he woke up, by falling off the couch.

Looking around he couldn't see or hear anything. That was a good sign, at least he hadn't cried out. It would have made for an awkward conversation with his new roommate. Pushing himself up Timmy went up to his room to get some more sleep. At least in there he could scream without anyone hearing him.

Thankfully the nightmare didn't start up again, so why had he woken up this time? The pounding at his bedroom door quickly answered his question.

A very annoyed Vicky barged into his room muttering something he couldn't quite catch. When she finally rounded on him to unleash some verbal abuse she was taken aback by the mark on his face. After all it was only her and Francis who ever beat him up in the past and she'd made it clear years ago that Timmy was her punching bag and her's alone. Recovering quickly the redheaded she-devil once again flipped his mattress over with him on it.

"OW! What the hell?!"

"Shut it Turner, your dad expects us over at the neighbor's any minute now and you aren't even up."

That didn't make sense, the party wasn't until noon and there was no way he'd slept more than a few hours since getting home. After crawling out from under his mattress Timmy looked at his alarm clock and couldn't believe his eyes, it was 11:57! How had he slept so long?

"Move it Turner!"

"What is your problem?"

"My problem is that my living arrangement depends on your dad thinking we're getting along and showing up with a damn bruise on your face isn't going to make a good first impression." She crossed the room and yanked him to his feet. "I don't have anywhere else to go if your old man throws me out because he thinks I'm beating you."

"If your sister wasn't such a damn bitch I wouldn't have a bruise on my face."

Vicky was taken aback by that. "Twerpette? My goody-toe-shoes sister, did that?"

"Do you want to talk all day or get to the party?"

Once she was gone Timmy took some fresh clothes into his bathroom and washed his hair and face in the sink. After brushing his teeth he changed into the clean clothes. As he dried his hair he noticed himself in the mirror and for once he didn't look dead on his feet, exhausted but not dead. He'd slept close to seven hours of near uninterrupted sleep, best night's sleep he'd had in a long time. It felt, nice to say the least. What had kept his nightmare at bay for so long?

When he came out of the bathroom he noticed his mattress had been put back there was a black bag sitting at the foot of his bed. Curious, he picked up the bag and found makeup inside. What the hell?

"Sit down Twerp."

"Wh–?"

"Sit." She said forcefully.

Reluctantly Timmy sat on the edge of the bed while the She-Devil dragged his desk chair infront of him. She sat in it and took the bag from his hands.

"What are you doing?"

Digging through the bag she pulled out a few different bottles, cases, and a brush.

"Vicky?"

"Shut it."

"Bu–"

It was no use, she's was too irritated to talk to him. When she made him turn his head he didn't resist, it would be easier to just let her do whatever she was planning on doing. He felt her start applying makeup to his cheek, trying to cover the mark. It hurt a bit but it seemed like she was trying to be as gentle as she could. However he knew that couldn't be it, it wasn't like her to be nice about anything, it was probably just his imagination. She applied a couple layers of he didn't know what to his face, made him face her, touched up a bit, and seemed satisfied.

"Now I don't have to worry about being accused of child abuse."

Timmy rolled his eyes, "yeah because you've never done that before."

Smirking, she left his room. Timmy got up and looked at himself in his bathroom mirror. There was no bruise on his cheek anymore. He knew it was there but now no one who hadn't seen it would know about it. How had she been able to cover it so well and in such a short time?

From downstairs he heard her yell up at him to move his ass before she threw him out the window.

The party turned out to be bigger than Timmy would have expected. He'd thought a few old clients would show up, an unwilling kid or two, not the 40 or so people that were mingling in his neighbor's yard. What surprised him most was seeing A.J. dragging a nervous looking Chester into the yard. They'd been hanging out with the poor teens who had been dragged along. It wasn't as terrible as he or his friends thought it would be. Everyone was having at least a decent time and Vicky was being her old charming self.

Mrs. Dinkleberg had asked the trio to help clean up after most of the guests had left. Chester was going off about probably having to attend summer school, A.J. was refusing to help him study, and Timmy was enjoying himself.

"Fine Boy Genius be that way! Oh I've been meaning to ask, what happened to the bruise on your face? As hard as she hit you there should be a bruise."

"Well… Vicky covered it up with makeup."

His friends exchanged a look.

"Why?" A.J. asked.

He shrugged, "worried my dad would kick her out if he thought she was beating me."

"Now she's worried about that?" Chester rolled his eyes.

"Couldn't you have just explained Tootie did it?"

"Uh…guys?" Chester was looking at the other end of the yard, "ya know that old saying 'speak of the devil'?"

More like she-devil. None of them could believe it, there was Tootie. She glared at them from where she was standing. It looked like she was going to walk over to them but then she spotted her sister, talking to Mr. Turner. Anger at the trio was replaced by pure hatred. To their surprise she started pushing past people to get to her sister.

"Shit."

The brunette took off without bothering to see if his friends were following. He had to get between Tootie and her sister before a fight broke out. There was too much rage left over from the night before to just let this play out. Eventually the two would have to have this discussion (fight) but there were too many people here. Someone was going to interfere and if Tootie couldn't bully them into backing off she'd find a way for Remy to make their life miserable. And it would be his fault, partially anyway, he did provoke her.

Luck wasn't on his side. Tootie shoved her sister away from his dad and began to yell at her. Asking why the hell she'd show her face in Dimmsdale again when no one wanted her there. Unfortunately Mr. Turner was trying to help.

"Now, now there's no need to cause a scene Tootie."

Most of the remaining guests were quickly making their way out of the yard but a few were hanging around.

The wheels in Vicky's head were spinning, trying to figure out how to deal with her sister without getting herself in too much trouble. "Why don't we talk about this inside sis?"

Not the best word choice.

"Don't you dare call me that! What the hell are you doing here?"

"I live here now, well technically I live next door. Mr. Turner was kind enough to rent me a room."

"What, screwing your way through life didn't work out?"

"That's enough Tootie. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

The black haired girl rounded on Mr. Turner.

"None of you even knows what she's done; she's abused every child she's ever babysat, screwed every teacher she could to make the grade, and now you're going to let her stay here and do it all over again?"

Timmy got between Tootie and his dad. There was no way she was going to take out her anger on his dad. "You need to leave."

"Oh that's right I forgot, you didn't see it as abuse because your parents neglected you for so long. Bet you love having her around so that everything can feel normal again, that's why you're so messed up now right? You've only known abuse and neglect so long not having it is driving you insane."

Chester and A.J. were trying to help the Dinklebergs herd the stragglers out of the yard and into their cars. It wouldn't keep the rest of the neighbors from hearing but it was something.

"Back off Tootie."

Tootie was pushed away from the Turners, towards the edge of the yard, by her sister.

"Listen up sis, you want to have this talk fine, but not here, not now. You've got a bone to pick with me so just name a time and place and we'll settle this."

Clearly outnumbered and without an audience Tootie started walking backwards. "Fine, but sooner or later the truth's gonna come out and then his dad is going to realized how you ripped their family apart. His mom won't give him the time of day and screws around with younger men. His dad's the laughing stock of the city. I mean come on, it's not even a secret he sleeps around with a married couple. So go ahead and screw up his life some more, hell screw him while you're at it. He's just one more screw up away from killing himself anyway."

She ran out of the yard. No one said a word. What could you say after something like that? What was worse is how right she had been about him. It was hard to believe that even though they barely spoke anymore she still knew more about him than anyone else.

He knew his dad was saying something to him, his friends were too, but the words didn't form and he couldn't hear them. How long had he been trying to deny those dark thoughts in the back of his mind? It was too much. It was all too much. Timmy just ran back to his house and locked himself inside his room. At some point he noticed he was crying, well sobbing. How long had he been doing that? He didn't care.

Everything he thought he knew about those sisters was wrong. You knew what Vicky was going to do, knew where she drew the line, but not with Tootie. She was willing to do anything to hurt you on the deepest level. Vicky wasn't the She-Devil he'd thought she was, more like a hellhound. The true She-Devil was Tootie.


	7. Reality Lies

Looking back on his actions after Tootie's outburst, running off to lock himself in his room probably hadn't been the best idea. At first Chester tried to get him to open the door but gave up after a half hour. That was two hours ago and his phone had been going off ever since. His father had been concerned by what Tootie said but hadn't come into the house to check on him. Once he couldn't cry anymore he'd been playing music very loudly in his room. Of course no one could hear it because the room was sound proof but he could hear what was going on outside. A few minutes ago he thought he heard shouting outside in the yard between a man and a woman so he turned the music down. By the time he did the voices had stopped.

Now that he had managed to calm down he looked through the dozens of texts from his friends and dad. They asked if he was alright, what had Tootie meant by _, and expressed concern for his well being. The newest text was from Chester and it managed to raise Timmy's spirits a little. Normally the blonde used abbreviations and kept his texts very short but this one was different, yet still distinctly Chester.

_' Dude don't let what that bitch said get ya down. Me and the gang are here for ya, not to mention a cute little blonde chick ;) '_

Just as he was about to reply, Timmy heard a commotion downstairs. Opening his door he heard a voice that surprised him, his father's.

"I'm sorry but that's my final decision."

Quietly, the teen made his way down the hall and crouched where the railing and wall met so he could see into the living room. There was his dad with his arms crossed, waiting by the open front door expectantly. Standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen was Vicky. All the blood had drained from her face.

Her eyes went wide as she looked at the floor then back to Mr. Turner. "I don't have anywhere else to go." Her voice was barely audible.

"I'm sorry." Mr. Turner repeated. He meant it but his voice was firm.

Years ago the teen would have basked in this moment. There was the woman who'd made him miserable looking like her whole world had just fallen apart. But he wasn't that boy anymore, now he pitied her. The woman downstairs looked nothing like the confident, manipulative, strong babysitter she used to be. Now she looked like she was made of glass and that one more crack would finally break her. He knew what it felt like to hide the cracks, trying to patch them up so no one noticed when he was really ready to break. It was a terrible feeling and no one deserved to feel like that. That wasn't something he'd wish on anyone.

"You can come back for your things tomorrow."

A tear rolled down her cheek and Timmy couldn't just sit there anymore. Something made him get up and walk down the hall.

"Dad?" His feet had brought him to the top of the stairs.

His father looked at him, surprised to see him out of his room. Meanwhile the redhead wiped her face with the back of her hand; she refused to look at either of them.

"What's going on?"

"Well, I did some thinking and maybe letting Vicky live here wasn't the best idea."

"She's been here three days, how do you know it won't work out?"

Timmy was at the bottom of the stairs now.

His father looked from his son to the redhead and back. "Looking back, I think Tootie might have been telling the truth about her being abusive."

Vicky walked over to the couch and sat down. More tears rolled down her face as she tried to keep herself calm. Not defending herself wasn't helping but that was probably what the shouting had been about earlier. Now his mind was scrambling to decide what to do. If he didn't say something soon even his dad would suspect something but did he even want to defend her? After all wasn't this just karma coming back to bite her in the ass? A voice in the back of his mind told him to tell the truth and get her thrown out. It was what she deserved, this would be his revenge.

Then she looked up at him and the faint feeling of satisfaction at seeing her so vulnerable disappeared. There was something there, in her eyes that looked so similar to what he saw in his own. Something had happened to her in the years since she'd left, something bad. They both knew she had no right to ask him for help, but her eyes pleaded anyway.

Turning back to his dad, the teen made up his mind on what to do. He just hoped he didn't regret it later.

"You believed her? Dad, Tootie's nothing but a manipulative liar now. That's all she's been for the last two years. "

That had surprised them both. His father seemed to be reevaluating the situation while Vicky stared at him.

Unfortunately that didn't change his dad's mind. "Well I still believe her. There were times when your mother and I came home and I noticed bruises."

"And Vicky's the only person who could have left them? Come on, I told you I was bullied in school."

It wasn't a complete lie. Back when Francis had been a bully he had left some bruises, on occasion some cuts, but not every bruise was because of him. He just left most of the ones that couldn't be hidden under his clothes. Luckily Timmy had told his dad about that, otherwise he might not have bought the lie so well. While Mr. Turner thought that over, Timmy closed the front door. Around his dad he could see Vicky listening intently to the conversation that might change the man's mind. She bit her lip.

Finally Mr. Turner looked back at Vicky then to his son. "Son, did Vicky ever abuse you when she was your babysitter?"

"No."

His father looked at him for a moment. Waiting for the slightest hint that his son was lying, he didn't know Timmy had become a very good liar. So now that he had both people involved denying Tootie's allegation there wasn't much he could do beside drop it.

Turning to the redhead, "okay, you can stay then but I want to make one thing clear."

Uh-oh this couldn't be good.

"I've heard some rumors about you young lady and you will not have those kinds of relations with my son."

What the hell? Was he serious? One minute he's trying to throw her out of the house for suspected abuse and the next he's telling them not to have sex? His dad was an idiot.

Without meaning to Timmy laughed, a cruel laugh. "Are you serious?" Wait, that wasn't his voice, well it was but there was something off about it. "You're going to set sexual boundaries between me and her when you're screwing the neighbors?"

Why was he saying those things? He didn't mean to say them, they just came out. The look on his father's face matched the one that had been on Vicky's when he first saw them talking.

"This is my house, you're my son, and you're still underage – "

"So the hell what? Doesn't stop my mother from screwing guys a couple years older than me now does it? Your house? This is the first time in two years you've stepped foot in here."

The look on his father's face made him feel ashamed for the words he couldn't seem to stop from coming out of his mouth. After a moment his father left and the teen couldn't bring himself to apologize. He was afraid of what he might say. Not wanting to stay downstairs he started back up the stairs.

"Turner –"

"Don't," he turned to look at her. She was standing now. "Don't thank me, don't ask me why, just leave me the hell alone."

Running back to his room he grabbed his ipod, headphones, and cell phone before climbing out his window. About a year ago, after forgetting his keys again when his fairies were away he'd wished for some grips, like the ones on rock walls, on the side of the house under his window. Wanda had made it to where only he could see and use them just to keep him safe. He used these to get down. Grabbing his bike he rode over to the trailer park. Right now he really needed to talk to his friends.

It was early the next morning when he climbed back up to his room. He'd spent the rest of the previous day at Chester's just talking. No matter what anyone said about Chester's intelligence, he was a great friend. When the brunette told him that he lied about the abuse, the blonde didn't question why. He could tell his friend didn't know why either so he just decided Timmy was a forgiving person. The fact that he was friends with Francis at all and had been the one to convince the rest of the gang to give him a chance was nothing compared to forgiving Vicky.

They talked about what Tootie had said. Chester hadn't taken most of it seriously. Everyone already thought the monster of an ex-babysitter was a bit of a slut but they valued their lives too much to say it out loud. Eventually they talked about the one subject Timmy had hoped to avoid. Tootie had said he was suicidal, which wasn't completely true or completely false. Something told him to admit that to his best friend but he couldn't. The thoughts were never serious, just things that entered his head when he was really down, usually after an encounter with his mother. Thinking his friend was telling the truth about it being another lie, Chester let the matter drop. When they talked about his outburst with his dad, the blonde made him feel better about it. It had probably just been pent up anger mixed with rage brought on by the black haired girl. His dad had accidentally set him off so he'd just apologize the next day.

After a while the conversation turned to other topics, school, summer plans, and eventually to a certain new acquaintance. It felt like old times. Sometimes it was nice to talk to Chester without the others around. He was weird, not too bright, but always good for a laugh. A.J. would just try to steer the conversation towards something academic or take a logical approach to situations while Chester just spoke his mind. Sanjay and Elmer were listeners; they didn't really talk things out with you unless the whole group was together. Before leaving Timmy had his phone stolen and later found a text sent to Ryan asking if she wanted to go to the mall with him and his friends Friday. Everything was fine until he biked home.

Left alone with his thoughts, he began to doubt some of the things he'd been so sure of while talking to his friend. No matter how mad he was, his dad hadn't deserved that. What if it just pushed his dad further away? Losing his mother had been bad enough; he couldn't lose his dad too. He should have apologized instead of running off to be with his friend. First thing in the morning he'd apologize. With that settled it was time to decide what to do about Vicky. The obvious thing to do would be to tell her she owed him and to make life miserable for her. Maybe threaten to tell his dad the truth if she pissed him off. No, that would be a horrible thing to do. He refused to turn into that kind of person. She'd probably act like nothing happened in a few days anyway. Probably best to just keep their distance from each other for a while.

Back in his own room he laid down in his bed. A thousand thoughts swirled around in his head before he finally drifted off to sleep.

Pencils scratching on paper, rows of people concentrating on tests, and Timmy looking around totally confused, this wasn't his normal dream. His classmates were back to being ten years old again. As he watched as they all aged to their current ages. It was the weirdest thing to watch in fast forward. In fact everything was in fast forward now. Pencils flew across papers faster than humanly possible and the tear in the board appeared almost instantly. Time started to slow to its normal pace when the first dragon came through. It just stood there staring at him. That's when someone put their arm around his neck, choking him. There was a quick struggle before he broke free to see Chester behind him.

No, not Chester, something that had been Chester. His friend's face was now covered in scales, his eye sockets were empty, and his teeth were all pointed. There was a sickening cracking sound as his arms lengthened and bent at an odd angle. It now looked like he had an extra joint between his elbow and shoulder. His hands morphed into three claws, two facing forward and one facing backward. Dropping onto all fours its knees jolted back so they bent backward. The face no longer looked human. It had lengthened into a snout, with an extra empty eye socket below and off to the side of the pre-existing ones. Opening its mouth, the thing hissed at him, and Timmy saw that its tongue and throat were lined with teeth. It lunged at him and caught his right hand in its mouth. Snapping its head to one side it ripped the flesh of his hand. There were bits of shredded flesh hanging off his hand.

The brunette had backed up against the door without realizing it. All of his classmates had morphed into similar creatures. Only shade differences in their scales and a little bit of hair remained to help distinguish who they'd been. Another dragon came through the portal. They were all walking towards him, they had him cornered. He was scared. Every time he saw the dragons he knew what kind of pain to expect but these things, who knew what they were capable of.

As futile as it was, Timmy tried to open the door. He expected to be attacked by the monsters any second but then something strange happened. Out of habit he hadn't turned the knob all the way but there was no familiar click of the lock. The revelation must have shown on his face because one of the mutated creatures lunged at him as he fell through the now open door.

He was sitting outside the classroom that had haunted his dreams for so long. Shock kept him rooted to the floor until something yanked his ankle, trying to drag him back inside. With his free foot Timmy kicked its face until it let go. A roar seemed to signal the rest of them to charge the door. Timmy jumped up and slammed the door shut. There was a faint click as the door locked, followed by a series of violent thuds against the door. He braced himself against the door, determined to keep it shut despite how useless the gesture was. Sheer numbers would force the door open again, or so he thought.

Several minutes went by and still the door held fast. As hard as the creatures on the other side tried, they weren't succeeding. The door that had held him prisoner for so long was now keeping his nightmares in. Not wanting to stick around should the door eventually give way, he started walking down the hall.

There were no other doors or windows, no markings on the floor or walls, nothing but one continuous hallway. After a while he realized that there were no curves or corners so he assumed it was a straight hallway. Not long after he began to think his mind was playing tricks on him and he wasn't actually moving. Turning around, he was prepared to see the door to the classroom, but all he saw was an identical hallway to the one he'd just turned away from. Looking in one direction and then the other, Timmy quickly forgot which way was which.

That was when he noticed something odd about the wall to his left. He couldn't put his finger on what seemed off about it but his curiosity drew him to the wall. With both hands outstretched he walked toward the wall and waited to feel wood on his palms. His right hand found wood but the other fell through the space that should have been wall. The result was him falling through the unnoticeable gap onto his side, leaving behind a bloody, smeared handprint on the wall.

He'd fallen into another hallway that blended perfectly with the one he'd just come from. How many similar halls had he passed? Well it wasn't really a hallway since it only continued a few feet to his right. There was a door at the end of it, a simple wooden door. If there was one thing the teen had learned lately it was that having time to think in his dreams was never a good sign. From somewhere in the distance he heard a loud, echoing bang followed by a deafening roar. Those things had managed to get out of the classroom which meant it was only a matter of time before they found him. He needed to hide somewhere but where? Looking at the new door he had his doubts, what if there was something worse behind it? Was it worth the risk hoping he found another one of these hidden gaps? There wasn't much time so he decided to hide in the new room if the door opened, if it didn't he'd feel along the wall until he found another hall to hide in. Something was running down the main hall, something big. The door opened and he went in.

Ear pressed against the door, he listened as it approached. To his dismay it slowed down and stopped. It must smell his blood. There was a low growl from the creature before it continued down the hall at a slower pace. Heart pounding he waited until he couldn't hear it anymore before slowly counting to ten. Outside there was still silence so he opened the door, well, he would have if the stupid door would open. It wasn't locked, just stuck. No amount of pushing on the door made it move so he just gave up. Guess he was now stuck in this room and whatever horrors it held.

The room was pitch black and freezing cold. Even after his eyes adjusted to the dark Timmy still couldn't see anything. There was just the eerie feeling that he was being watched. Then something moved not far away, there was the sound of a heavy chain moving too. It made him jump back against the door. He yelped when he felt the doorknob being rammed into his back.

That was when someone started laughing, a cruel, humorless laugh that made his skin crawl. He knew that laugh.

"Finally made it out huh? Took you longer than I thought."

Timmy's stomach seemed to disappear. That voice, no it couldn't be, it just couldn't.

"Denial, such a fascinating state of mind."

Suddenly the room lit up. It was only a few feet across and only a foot or so wide. Only the wall across from him wasn't lined with floor to ceiling mirrors, it made the room look like some twisted dance studio. That one looked like the surface of crystal clear water, a bit distorted but easy to see through. Beyond it was what he could only assume was a cell. Even though the room was brightly lit, the light only reached a foot into the cell. Whatever was in there was kept in the dark. From what he could see it was dirty in there and there was a putrid smell coming from it.

There was nothing else in the room, just a few reflections of him in the glass walls.

"Why don't you take a closer look?" It wasn't a suggestion.

Hesitantly the brunette walked closer to the cell. Now that he was closer it looked a little less like water and more like a force field.

From within the cell he could hear heavy chains dragging across a stone floor. Whatever was in there was coming to meet him. A pale, sickly figure stood just beyond the light. It might have been human but it was hard to tell. All he could really tell was that it was really thin.

"Now, now friend, it isn't polite to hide in the shadows. Come say hello."

What emerged from the shadows made his stomach turn. To his horror it was a human, its skin wasn't just pale it was grey and the matted hair on its head covered its face. There were shackles attached to heavy chains on both its ankles and hands. It was little more than skin and bones so he was surprised it had the strength to stand. Light, threadbare clothes hung loosely from its frame. In some places they'd been torn with dark brown, yellow, and even blood red stains around the frayed edges. He noticed its legs were shaking and doubted it would be able to stand much longer.

Seconds later its legs gave out and it fell, not even attempting to catch itself. It let out a groan before pushing itself up into a sitting position. For a moment it sat there taking labored breaths. Even if this was just a dream Timmy couldn't help but feel sorry for it. Scanning along the walls and water-force-field he couldn't find any way into the cell. When that didn't work he decided to see if maybe the force field could be opened from his side. Before he could touch the barrier he saw it move. It just hit the floor in front of it. Was it trying to tell him something? His hand met no resistance where the barrier should have been but instead kept going until his arm went into the cell up to his elbow. That same feeling hit him like a truck, the cold, the fear, and the overwhelming despair back in the classroom when he'd been pulled through the portal spread into every fiber of his being. Yanking his arm back out caused him to fall onto his back. The feeling went away as soon as his arm was free, mostly anyway.

Again the figure hit the floor, this time a bit more forcefully. The chain on its arm clinked against the stone. Sitting up he looked at the chains. There was more than enough slack for it to pass through the barrier, so why didn't it?

"Because unlike you it isn't free to pass through, someone else has to free it."

Where was that voice coming from? The room was a cell and mirrors so where was this third person hiding?

"Still haven't figured it out have you?" Now it sounded like the voice was moving around the room as it spoke.

"Figured what out?" He looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.

"Why don't you and I talk face to face? Just walk up to the glass, anywhere will suffice."

Not sure what to expect the teen slowly stood up and walked over to one of the mirror walls. All he saw was his reflection. He was pale, looked tired, and a bit sick. When had he started letting his health suffer?

Wait, something was off about his reflection. At first he thought maybe the glass was warped but then he noticed something. His reflection started to look healthier, its skin gained some color, eyes were brighter and more alert, but then it did something he didn't. His reflection smirked at him. Those couldn't be his eyes staring back at him, they were darker and cruel. Now it barely resembled him.

The reflection saw his confusion and panic. The smirk became a cruel grin that showed he–it had fangs. In fact the him in the mirror looked incredibly feline. Balancing on its heels the twisted version of him crouched down and seemed to lean towards him. Without thinking the actual Timmy took a few steps back, afraid that thing would somehow come out of the mirror. The look on its face was like a predator that had stumbled across a trapped animal, completely overjoyed. Pointed ears stuck out of dark, slicked back hair. One arm rested across its knee while the other was on the floor in front of it, kind of like a sprinter getting ready to go. Its hands ended in long, claw-like nails. Whatever it was, it was poised to pounce.

"There, that's better isn't it?" Hearing his voice come out of that thing disgusted him. Well it wasn't quite his voice but it was eerily close.

"What the hell are you?" The real Timmy asked.

The arm across its knee moved to clutch the fabric over its heart in mock hurt, "now you've hurt my feelings. Can't you see that I'm you, a part of you at least?"

When he didn't reply the feline version of him laughed.

"I knew you were in denial but I wasn't expecting this. Shall I explain it to you then?"

The arm that had been over its heart moved but thankfully staying on the other side of the glass. Its clawed hand looked like it was holding something. At the same time Timmy felt a pressure on his chin, like someone was holding onto it, and their nails were digging into his jaw painfully. When the reflection squeezed its fingers he could feel those claw-like nails digging deeper into his flesh. Instinct made him pull back but the pressure on his chin kept him in place. He only succeeded in causing a couple of nails to draw blood.

"As I said I'm a part of you. A part of you that can be safely tucked away in some dark corner of you mind where I can't cause any harm. I feed off your fears, hatred, and anger, among other things. Every day I grow stronger and you lose a little bit of your real self which in turn makes you a little more like me. Not that you see it that way of course. I just help you rationalize that you're say, protecting your friends so that you can take on a certain pigtail wearing brat down a notch, to help make myself stronger. Then there was my little appearance yesterday, I had a lovely time talking to your dad. Oh just you wait until I can actually control what you do and say, then you and I will have some real fun." It made a motion of pushing him back and Timmy fell onto his back again.

"Just think of me as a personification of your own willful destruction. I'll have to thank that girl of your's for giving me so much strength recently. It won't be long now before I can let depression poison your mind and soul."

Scrambling to his feet, Timmy backed away from the wall. If that thing was what filled him with despair and worthlessness then did that mean the creature in the cell–?

"Clever, clever boy, figured it out without even one little hint." It laughed again, a cruel laugh, "just don't forget that you put yourself in there."

Then it started all at once, every negative thought for the past two years flooded his mind all at once. Some in his voice, some in the reflection's.

_She doesn't care anymore. _

_ Am I really that worthless? _

_ They don't give a damn about me. _

_ Maybe I really am a waste. _

_ What's the point anymore? _

_ Should I just make it all stop? But – _

_ Now really, who's going to miss you? _

_ She'd never even notice you're gone._

Covering his ears the brunette yelled for it all to stop. Now new voices were joining in; his dad, his mother, neighbors, friends, classmates, even Tootie. Repeating words that had cut him deep, even if they weren't said to hurt him. Despite the voices overlapping he could make out every word and relived the emotions brought on by those words all at once. Anger, shame, embarrassment, confusion, fear, sadness, it was all overwhelming. His nails dug into the flesh around his ears as he gritted his teeth.

Then over all the other voices he heard Tootie's. It was like she was whispering in his ear, repeating everything she'd said the day before. Timmy swung both his arms in the air in a futile attempt to make the voice stop, as if hitting someone who wasn't there would make them be quiet. The reflection chuckled. It opened its mouth but spoke in Tootie's voice, telling him he was worthless, that his friends were sick of dealing with him, and that everyone would be happier if he died.

"NO!"

As suddenly as the voices started they stopped. Shock spread across the reflection's face as it stared into the cell. Terrified, Timmy followed its gaze to the human sitting in the cell, in the same spot as before. There was no way that thing could have spoken. It was sickly and weak while the voice had been strong and clear.

"No."

Like the reflection, this thing has his voice but it actually sounded like him. Its voice wavered and was barely audible, but it was still his voice.

"Still hanging in there I see. Looks like you still need to be beaten down a bit, can't have you ruining my fun now can I?"

It looked at the mirror, hair covered the upper half of its face.

"How about we show you what you've become? See if you can save yourself."

Jumping up to his feet, the brunette backed away as the person in the cell raised a hand to push its matted hair from its face. This had to be his mind's sick imagination, there was no way this was real.

"Of course we're real. Did you really think all those nightmares weren't trying to warn you of a deeper problem in your mind? He's used most of his remaining strength to warn you."

He barely heard it over the sound of his pounding heart at the sight of the creature's face. It was him, not the twisted version in the mirror, it looked just like him. Except that it looked like it was being starved. The skin was pulled tight over its skull with a pair of sunken eyes staring at him. It looked tired, not the exhausted tired he felt but the kind when you just want to give up, stop trying. However the pain it should have felt, the exhaustion, the weakness its body clearly showed, none of that showed in its eyes. There was a fierce determination in them. At one time it had probably shone like a blazing fire but now it just glowed like hot coals.

They stared at each other. Then it started to shake until it fell over, chest barely moving.

_He's–I'm dying._

"You're losing yourself boy, and once you're lost, I get to steal your soul."

Timmy woke up screaming and he kept screaming until his voice gave out. It took a long time for him to slow his heart and even longer to stop shaking. The last thing he remembered before waking up was a weak, breathless voice saying 'fight'.


	8. Summer Surprises

In the several weeks that followed, a few things happened, some good and some bad.

The family of fairies had returned, which meant the toddler had to be taught not to let the new tenant see him. A task that proved difficult. Poof had no fear of humans and, despite his mother's best efforts, couldn't be convinced that humans were terrible creatures that would imprison him if they ever got the chance. Being brought up around Timmy, his parents, and friends, it made the purple fairy comfortable around humans. Never before had a fairy child been raised alongside humans, it made teaching them to fear humans so much easier when they'd never seen one. As young as he was, Poof had figured out that most humans wouldn't hurt a fairy even if they knew fairies existed. Sure there would be a handful that were terrible but there would also be some like his brother. Speaking of his brother, Timmy shared some of the blame in the child's lack of fear around humans. The brunette often took him to the park to play, let him play with Hope, and took him to a local toy store. Not to mention the toddler's fascination with human toys and gadgets, really anything he could get his hands on.

During their first week back Poof had somehow snuck into the guest room, took a CD player from a box in the closet, and kept it hidden in Timmy's room for a few days. No one would have even known it was missing had the redhead not noticed a couple of CDs lying on the floor of the closet. She'd asked her roommate if he'd seen the player, thinking she'd accidentally dragged it out and dropped it somewhere. Later that night while she was at work Timmy made his godbrother put it back in her room. Unfortunately the little fairy had managed to figure out how the device worked and learned the words to every song, none of which were appropriate for a four year old to sing. In fact he'd learned a handful of colorful new words and phrases, most of which he used correctly. Wanda was still trying to get him to stop.

Shortly after that the child started showing interest in the redhead. His love for human toys and such was harmless but wanting to learn about a human, an adult, was dangerous. Now if this fascination had been for another child with fairies no one would mind. Poof was an extremely curious fairy who liked to know how things worked, or in this case, how a person worked. More than once Timmy had, had to drag his brother away from a corner the toddler was peering around to watch Vicky. When Wanda asked her son why he was always watching Vicky, the toddler said it was because she was playing pretend. An explanation that confused his parents who were worried that maybe he was using magic to mess with the woman but made the teenager sick to his stomach. Over the past year Poof often said the brunette was 'playing pretend', something that started around the same time Timmy began to really shut people out and started hiding the worst of his pain from everyone. It made him wonder what had happened to the redhead, she had to be hiding something bad if she was going to such lengths to hide it. Whatever it was, the fairy would now do for her what he was doing for Timmy, what he'd been doing for a year, finding little things he could use his magic to make better. Things that weren't noticeable, unless you knew how fairy magic worked.

Luckily there was only one thing Timmy suspected his brother had done. The fairy had fixed Vicky's car, not like brand new but it was reliably functional. One day she'd walked the last few miles back to the house in the rain after her car broke down. It was a piece of junk that had been acting up but it got her to and from work. Mr. Turner had taken his son out with him the next morning, fairies riding along as a trio of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview, to tinker with it. After a couple of hours they were about to give up since the redhead needed a ride to work soon but finally the car started. That final time his father tried to crank the car before it started the teen swore he heard a soft 'poof' coming from under the hood.

However there wasn't much he could do to stop the purple haired fairy. He'd tried once he realized the child was using his magic to help him but it hadn't worked. All he could do was hope the toddler would be careful with his magic. It was a lot to hope for considering the older fairies sometimes misused their magic. At least Vicky was at work or out of the house a lot.

She found a job at the edge of town at a grocery store. Normally she worked nights, so they didn't run into each other much. The few times they had the pair were civil to one another, after all Timmy could easily have the older woman thrown out of the house and she knew it. That was why she kept to herself. It was strange having her act so different from when she babysat him but the scare with his dad almost kicking her out and whatever she'd gone through since leaving were probably the only reason she was acting so different. Hell she hadn't even teased him since the day her sister crashed the party. Which was fine by him, he was getting enough of that from a pair of blondes.

Chester had quickly become friends with Seth, Ryan's older brother, and the group of misfits regularly found themselves invited to parties and beach day trips. The first few times it'd just been them and the new graduates but as the summer wore on Ryan and her friends started joining in. And once that happened Timmy was no longer able to hide at the edge of a group where he didn't have to speak. Instead the tiny blonde and his best friend began to gang up on him, making him join in games, conversations, and go swimming. At first he'd hated his friend for it but eventually he started to enjoy himself.

The change in his personality when he was around the girl wasn't as drastic as the first night they met but it was clear he was slowly opening up. Of course Chester was always teasing his best friend about the affect she had on him. Not to mention the two blondes tended to gang up on him just to get him flustered or to push him out of his comfort zone a bit. They did everything they could to keep him from closing himself up.

One day on the way to the beach Chester asked his friend when he was going to ask the tiny blonde out. Confused Timmy wondered how his friend could think that. Ever since Tootie he hadn't really been interested in dating again, sure he thought some girls were cute but dating wasn't something he thought about a lot. Maybe kissing Ryan that night hadn't been the best idea now that he thought about it. But if he was honest with himself he did think of her as more than a friend, he just wasn't sure if it was in a romantic way. He'd spent the rest of the drive tuning out his friend's rambling and thinking about the petite blonde. His feelings for her were confused but he did know a few things; her smiles were contagious, seeing her lifted his spirits, and seeing a text from her never failed to bring a small smile to his face.

Once they arrived, Seth immediately dragged Chester over to play volleyball, leaving Timmy to wander around saying hello to the others since the rest of his group had opted to stay home due to sunburns and a desire to read some new science journals. Someone tackled-hugged him from behind, that someone being a certain green eyed blonde, while he was talking to a couple of Seth's friends. She asked him to go with her to buy some drinks at a store down the beach because her brother forgot it was his turn to bring them.

The store wasn't too far away. They quickly found something to talk about which soon turned into teasing one another.

"So, Turner, was that kiss you gave me the first night we met the only one I'll get?"

"Maybe."

" 'Maybe.' He says."

They'd bought the drinks and were headed back to the part of the beach their friends were at.

"It's not polite to keep a lady waiting you know." She teased.

"Sorry."

Stopping in front of him, Ryan looked up at him with a frown on her face. Her skin had tanned a little so her freckles were darker than the first time they'd met. The darkest ran under both her eyes and over the bridge of her nose but there were also some lighter ones on the rest of her face. Not to mention the ones on her shoulders. With a snap of her fingers the tiny blonde regained his attention.

"I'm not very patient."

"I haven't noticed." He couldn't help but smile a little.

Timmy was the kind of person who wore a t-shirt on the beach sometimes, just a plain white shirt to keep him from burning too much. Grabbing the front of his shirt, the petite blonde pulled him down to her eye level.

"Really?"

Feeling his smile grow a little, "well, maybe."

Returning his smile, she leaned towards him, leaving just the tiniest space between them. Impatient as she was, she also knew letting him make the next move was the only way to know where this was heading.

Not sure what to do, the brunette felt his smile disappear. Could his heart go through with this? Could he mentally handle what he was potentially getting himself into?

_Only one way to find out, right?_

Some part of him, a part that he could barely hear, begged him not to. That he still needed time to get better. But his heart wanted to try. Wasn't that the best way to see what he could handle?

Ryan had started to pull back, disappointed that the other wasn't interested. Her hand let go of his shirt, only to be pulled back over his heart by his free hand as his lips found her's.

They'd walked back to the spot their friends were at hand in hand. Before leaving, Timmy asked if they could hang out, just the two of them.

To date they hadn't actually spent time alone, but they'd finally set a date to hang out. Only a few more days until then. His heart raced just thinking about it.

None of the recent changes in his life seemed to have affected his dreams. Most nights he was running down the long hallway being chased by one of the new creatures. Try as he might, he could never find another opening along the wall. In fact the only change since the first night he ran down the hall were a number of dried blood smears along the walls and floor. They were from when the creatures caught up with him while he was feeling along the walls for another hidden opening. Only one blood smear, his handprint from the first run, hadn't dried. And he was never able to run further down the hallway once he reached it. One of the dragons was waiting for him, usually it chased him back up the hall where he was mauled by the mutant creature but sometimes he was able to run into the mirror room.

That room was nothing like the classroom he was used to seeing in his nightmares.

For the sake of not having to call both alternate versions of himself 'it', his sleep deprived mind started referring to them as Cell and Cat. Cell hadn't come back out of the shadows of his cage or tried to communicate with Timmy again. Once in a while chains would clank or a cough could be heard from somewhere behind the bars but other than that, Cell was quiet. It was the other one that made Timmy's skin crawl. On the rare nights he ran into the room or found himself already inside, he never knew what to expect. There were nights when he repeated hurtful words his mother had said, carried on one sided conversations with the captive version, and then there were the times he never said a word. Those were the worst times. Silently the predator-like version would walk around the room. The brunette felt like he was being stalked by some dangerous predator, that he would turn around and find it behind him. Never did it take its eyes off of him as it strolled around the room, not even when it disappeared for a moment when walking from the mirror on one side of the cell to the other. Even though Timmy couldn't see it, he could still feel those cruel eyes staring him down.

It drove him mad knowing those eyes were always staring at him.

And tonight was no different. He found himself in the room from the very start of his dream. There was no sign of Cat in any of the mirrors nor did a single sound come from the cage. Still he could hear those eyes on him, from every angle. In a panic Timmy found himself turning around searching for those eyes. For several minutes he did this until the same cruel laugh could be heard from behind him. When he turned there was Cat, looking as if he could walk through the glass and into the room. Then the voices started. Just like the first night in the room, only louder, and this time he could hear its voice added to the mix.

Hands over his ears, the teen yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to drown out the voices with his own. However they just got louder, and his own gave out when a pair of hands wrapped around his throat. A pair of cat like eyes looked back at him as he heard it laugh, a wide grin on its face showing rows of sharp teeth.

Then all at once it all stopped. There was nothing, no sound, he couldn't see, couldn't feel, or think, or even breathe.


	9. Surprises

For several seconds there was nothing, then he realized he wasn't in his bed anymore. Well, not completely anyway. Somehow he'd managed to get his legs tangled in his bed sheets while the rest of him was free. One knee had hooked around his bedpost, the other was being kept on the bed by the sheets, and his shoulders, head, and arms were on the floor. Faint pain in his shoulders made him think he'd fallen out of bed several minutes earlier, maybe longer. Sighing he tried to pull one of his legs free, gave up, and failed to pull himself back onto the bed.

His door was flung open, violently bouncing off the wall, to reveal a very tire looking redhead and he could hear someone pounding on the front door. _Shit! _Redoubling his efforts to free himself, ignoring his roommate's angry comments, he finally managed to pull his legs free. Scrambling up from the floor he sprinted down the stairs. Crap! He had what, ten seconds? As quickly as he could he unlocked the door and pulled it open, only to watch as a car that had obviously pulled out of the driveway sped away.

A tiny squeal of delight made him look down. There, sitting down on the doormat next to a small bag, was his baby sister, Hope. She was in one of his old baby dresses that had faded to a pale pink. With another squeal the little girl held her arms up. Scooping his sister up with one arm and her bag with his other hand the teen couldn't fight the huge grin that spread across his face.

Unlike her mother and brother, Hope had bright hazel eyes and jet black hair that had been cropped short since the last time he saw her. She happily nuzzled her brother, glad to be away from the chaos of her mother's apartment. Using his foot to close the door, Timmy tossed the bag into a corner of the living room, there wouldn't be anything in there he didn't already have anyway.

"What the hell?"

Vicky was halfway down the stairs to ask why someone had tried to bang down the front door when she noticed the child in the teen's arms. A tiny whimper came from his arms as Hope hid her face from the woman.

Frowning, the brunette did his best to comfort the child in his arms. This fear of girls she'd developed worried him, there was no telling what had started it but he was certain it was his mother's fault. Even Wanda scared her, and the woman was nothing but nice to the girl. Try as he might, nothing seemed to make her trust anyone who was female.

"Who's kid?"

"She's my sister."

"Seriously?" The redhead seemed skeptical to think a woman well into her 40s would have another child. With her arms crossed she walked to his side so she could look at the little girl.

"Vicky don't, she doesn't like girls."

To his surprise the black haired child peeked at the redhead. With a smirk Vicky said hi, and his sister didn't go back to avoiding eye contact like she normally would. Instead she let a bit more of her face show. Unlike the few other girls Hope regularly came into contact with, Trixie, Veronica, Mrs. Dinkelberg, and unfortunately Tootie, Vicky didn't baby talk to Hope or really talk to her any different than she would any other human. It wasn't something the child was used to, not from a girl anyway.

"What's your name cutie?"

Once again the child hid her face but he could feel the little smile on her face. He couldn't help but chuckle. "Just my luck, only girl she isn't terrified of is the one that made six years of my life hell."

_HOLY SHIT!_

The look he received from his roommate dashed any hopes that he hadn't actually said the words out loud. However he had and there was no taking them back.

"Thanks Twerp." She said sarcastically before ruffling the little girl's hair and giving him a playful smack on the head. "Go make me breakfast."

"And I would do that why?"

"Because it's your fault I got woken up so freaking early."

"Not my problem." Setting his sister down on the couch, he went upstairs and returned with a baby gate and some of Hope's favorite toys. For the moment he just set the gate up at the bottom of the stairs, left most of the toys on the floor, and sat on the floor in front of the couch holding up a stuffed bear. The poor toy had been through a lot. It was the Frankenstein's monster of toys, none of its original limbs had survived, they were all a different color, one of its ears had been replaced with a panda's, two buttons had been sewn on after its eyes fell off, but the rest of the head and torso were still intact. For now at least. Poof had magiked it into Hope's crib the first night she spent the night and she'd cried so much when Timmy removed it that he just left it there. Back then it had been in rough shape and soon began to fall apart but every time he tried to throw it out it made its way back into the crib. So he'd tried to fix it the best he could. His fairies had fixed it brand new with magic a few months ago but the resulting tantrum made him ask for it to be returned to its mutant state. Despite the freakish look of the bear Hope loved it. She happily cooed when he handed it to her.

"That is….one interesting teddy bear."

Looking back at the woman he saw that she'd set up the baby gate.

"She loves it." He shrugged.

"Breakfast." The older woman half ordered, half whined. "I'll watch her."

They exchanged a knowing look, she knew what was going through his head, and they both started laughing. Her because it was funny to see the look on his face and, well, Timmy had no explanation for why he was laughing other than having his sister around made him happier.

Knocking on the door cut their laughter short. The redhead peaked through the window before making her way back upstairs.

"Change your mind?"

"Don't feel like dealing with your lame ass friends."

Moving his sister to the floor, he opened the door to find a group of people standing on the doorstep. Chester stood at the front of the group with the other guys, Trixie, Veronica, and Francis behind him.

"Dude!" pushing past his friend the blonde looked stoked about something, "you are never going to believe this."

The others filed in after him, the girls sat on the couch, and he closed the door to look at the blonde.

"So I was talking to Seth an– Hey Hope!" Immediately Chester forgot what he was about to tell his best friend something exciting in favor of sitting next to the little girl. Hope giggled and started tugging on his hair. He let out a playful yelp.

"When did she get here?" A.J. asked.

"About ten minutes ago." A faint blush spread across the teen's face. He'd completely forgotten that he'd invited the group to his house the day before. He was in nothing but his pajama pants.

"Well that explains you attire."

"Shut it."

A few minutes later the brunette was back in the living room now in fresh clothes, talking with the others. Francis had Veronica on his lap on one end of the couch while Elmer and Trixie sat on the other. Elmer, Sanjay, and A.J. sat on the floor with Timmy, Chester, and Hope. The young genius was upset that Chester wasn't taking his summer classes seriously but his remarks went unheard. Chester was like a second brother to Hope so he was too busy playing with her to listen to his friend. They talked about throwing a smaller party before school started back up, the girls talked about shopping, and Chester pestered his friend about Ryan.

"Chester, did you not have something to tell Timmy?" Sanjay asked after a while.

"Oh yeah!" The blonde exclaimed as the child threw a ball she'd been playing with at him. Rolling the ball to his best friend, "so Seth said you and Ryan were going on a date soon –"

"It's not a date really, we're just gonna hang out for a bit."

"Like, that's totally a date!" Veronica shouted. "Where are you taking her?"

Once again blushing, "I don't know yet."

To keep her friend from pestering him, Trixie spoke up, "well why not go hang out at the mall? You can do some window shopping, grab lunch, and it'll be easy to find something to talk about."

A shrug was the only response she got. In truth that's what he'd been planning to do all along but he didn't feel like talking about it. His insides were already in knots at the thought of being alone with her and trying to keep a conversation going. The others could see the nervousness on his face. With Tootie being his only other relationship it didn't surprise them that he wasn't sure what to do. She'd been the one to decide where they would go on dates, even to places he didn't really like, but he'd gone anyway because that's what she wanted. All they could do was offer encouragement and hope things went alright.

"No worries man! She obviously likes you so just be yourself and things will be fine."

With a weak smile the brunette handed the ball to his sister but she dropped it. It rolled over to the couch. Trixie picked it up and held it out to the girl.

It seemed her easiness with Vicky had been a fluke event. When Hope looked at the older girl she looked scared even though Trixie was smiling at her.

"Don't you want your toy back?" she asked gently.

Looking back at her brother the little girl's eyes asked him to get it for her. For months his friends had been trying to help him ease his sister's fear but they hadn't made much progress.

"I'm not getting it for you. You know Trixie, she's nice."

Again the child looked at Trixie. Timidly she shuffled a bit closer and took the toy.

"See I'm not so bad." But the girl rushed into her brother's arms to hide her face. Well, at least she'd taken the toy. Before she would have cried until someone else gave it to her or just go get another toy.

Silence followed but Elmer decided to speak up.

"So…how long is Hope staying with you?"

"No clue."

"Dude what about your date-that's-not-a-date with Ryan?"

"It'll have to wait until she goes home."

That didn't sit well with the blonde. His friend was getting better thanks to the little blonde, who knew how long she'd patiently wait before moving on? "I could watch her for a few hours, it's not like she doesn't love me."

Rolling his eyes Timmy looked at his friend, "well, maybe."

"No maybe! My dad will help me out so you're going on that date."

There was no point arguing with him once he made up his mind. Chester had watched Hope for him before and it was better than leaving her with Vicky. She wouldn't treat her bad but he'd still rather her not be left to babysit his sister.

His friends didn't stay much longer, they were afraid the redhead would come downstairs. As soon as they were gone she came downstairs looking pissed off. Sighing, the teen took his sister upstairs to lay her down for a nap. If she had wanted to come downstairs to get something she could have. She was paying rent so she had every right to walk around the house even if his friends came over. If she wanted to prove that she wasn't the same evil bitch as before then she would have to face some of the people she'd wronged eventually.

For the remainder of the day he stayed upstairs with his fairies and sister. Poof was happy to have his playmate around again. There was a lot of accidental magic and two giggling children who refused to listen to the teen and two adults. In the end a loud bang in the hallway, the result of Poof trying to keep his parents from taking his wand, was what finally put an end to the toddler's antics. The fairies only had a few seconds to magic themselves inside their fish bowl before the bedroom door slammed open.

"What the hell Turner?!"

"I uh…." He had no idea what Poof had done so he didn't know what kind of excuse he needed to calm the woman.

She had a magic eight ball in her hand that he assumed had been the cause of the bang.

"Um…sorry?"

Angry at having her sleep disturbed twice in one day she threw the ball at him. A tiny giggle came from the child on the bed. Okay so her earlier fondness of the redhead wasn't a onetime thing. This wasn't going to be a good thing if his sister started liking Vicky.

"Stupid Twerp."

"Bitch."

Ignoring him, Vicky walked over to the bed to where Hope was. To everyone's surprise, his fairies were watching from their bowl, the little girl raised her arms up to be picked up. What was more surprising was that she picked the child up.

"Hey Twerpette."

"Please don't call her that."

"Well I don't know what her name is. You gonna tell me your name?"

Hope cooed. Since the woman had her hair down the child did what she did best, tugged on a lock of red hair. His hair was too short to pull on but since Chester never reprimanded her when she pulled his hair she didn't think it was wrong to do. Hissing at the sudden tug, the redhead pried the child's hand off her hair. "No." she told the little girl firmly.

He tried and failed to stop himself from chuckling, "yeah Chester's got her thinking people don't mind having their hair pulled."

"Remind me to kick his ass for that. Whoops."

"Don't worry about it, she probably hears worse at my mother's house. Besides she doesn't talk much."

Again the child tried to tug on the woman's hair only to be told no.

"So what's her name?"

"Hope."

"So little Twerpette is staying for awhile?"

"Yup."

Grinning at her roommate mischievously, "so wanna let me babysit?"


	10. To the Mall

After leaving his sister at the trailer park with his best friend, Timmy made his way to the mall where he was going to meet Ryan. Thanks to his friends trying to 'help' him he would be late getting there. A.J. had droned on and on about popular topics to discuss on dates (which he'd found online), Elmer brought his girlfriend and Veronica to help him dress nice, and Chester had teased him the entire time. Friends were great and all, they made life bearable most of the time, but they could also be a pain in the ass. Right now, he considered them all annoying brats. At least they got his mind off his nerves.

The girls had raided his closet and dresser to find a nice pair of jeans that weren't faded or ripped, a pink dress shirt that he'd reluctantly agreed to wear, forced him to wear some makeup so the bags under his eyes weren't so noticeable, and had styled his hair for him. They all kept telling him to just be himself but how was he supposed to do that when he didn't look like himself? Scratch that, he looked like his old self, back when he was happy. Maybe he could pretend to be that Timmy again for the day. His nightmares hadn't changed anymore but he still wasn't sleeping much. Until the nightmares stopped, he couldn't go back to being his old self.

Finally he arrived at the section of the mall he was supposed to meet Ryan at. He could imagine the lecture A.J. would give him about keeping a lady waiting, even though he was the one who kept his friend from leaving. There was a crowd so it made locating the short blonde difficult. Hopefully he could find her soon. A tap on his shoulder told him that she had found him. She rolled her eyes at him playfully before teasing him about being late. Hearing that his friends were to blame and giving him a once over she ruffled his hair so that it was its normal mess, Trixie would pout about it once she found out. They laughed at the thought of the girl getting upset.

Then there was her attire. A pastel green, knee length dress a friend insisted she wear. There was what he was sure was a bow from a Christmas present in her hair. The reason he thought it was from a Christmas present was because it was light blue with snowflakes on it. She also wore a pair of candy cane leggings and just enough makeup to make her eyes stand out. Nervously she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear which made him realize he'd been starring. He'd also smiled a little. Feeling a bit self-conscious he looked away; this was going well wasn't it? Why'd she have to be so cute?

It wasn't until she giggled that he figured out he'd said that last part out loud.

"You don't look too bad yourself Turner."

"Thanks, I think… What?"

She was staring at his face, "are you wearing makeup?"

"Unwillingly yes. I was told looking half dead was inappropriate for a date."

"Really? So this is a date now?"

He shrugged. "Chester calls it a date-that's-not-a-date."

Crossing her arms and smiling up at him, "what do you call it?"

"Hanging out with a cute girl without my idiot friends around."

That earned a series of giggles from the blonde. Who then asked if there was any shop he wanted to visit before they began wandering around the mall. There was, a new shop that had just opened up that Chester told him was worth checking out. He had no idea what they sold but now she was curious to see it too. Several minutes of searching later, Chester's directions had been lousy, they found the store. It was definitely interesting.

About a quarter of the shop was dedicated to jewelry that ranged from colorful stones, magnetic bracelets, steam punk themed pieces, and zodiac necklaces. They spent a good ten minutes just browsing that part of the store. Some of the stone jewelry had little notes about what they could make the wearer feel (lucky, harmony, things like that) and the magnetic bracelets claimed to be good for the body. Unlike a normal jewelry display at other stores, this one was a collection of several different styles that were bound to appeal to everyone. Even though he didn't really see what girl's found so intriguing about jewelry, the teen found a few that he thought were cool, and was playfully teased for it.

Other items found in the store included small bamboo plants, some clothing, wrap around skirts, scarves, mirrors framed with colored glass, tribal masks, incense, and katanas behind the counter. The pair couldn't stop talking about some of the things they found, what they thought was cool, what wasn't really their style, and what was weird. While Timmy couldn't figure out what Chester would like about a place like this, he liked browsing around. Then they found a display of pins and magnets that kept them entertained for several minutes. Some of them were pictures of popular characters, others were snarky phrases, or stupid things like 'don't talk to me until I've had my second coffee'. He ended up buying a couple of them, one for him and one for Ryan. She said he didn't have to but he was going to anyway. The quote on it was funny because it fit her and she loved it, 'I'm short, I'm crazy, and I can kick your ass'.

Finally they left the shop, agreeing that they'd need to come back again at some point. Next they went to a store that Ryan enjoyed going to. Browsing the racks, the blonde kept up a conversation with her companion.

"You said you had a sister right?"

"Yeah, Hope."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty one months."

He heard her let out an 'aw' as girl's always do when they hear about children or baby animals while he took his phone out of his pocket. Once he found a picture of his sister he showed it to Ryan, it was one Chester had taken a few days ago with the siblings smiling at the camera, Hope was reaching for the phone.

"Aw! Little cutie. Have you seen her lately?"

"Yeah," putting his phone up, "I'm babysitting her for a while but Chester's watching her today. That's weirdly adorable."

That last bit was referring to a dark blue dress she'd pulled off the rack. Material around the stomach pulled back to reveal a mouth with sharp teeth. There were some strings meant to look like stitches connecting the upper and bottom portions of material that covered the mouth. It was one of those things you needed the right personality to pull off, and the blonde definitely did.

"Ya think?"

He nodded.

Several minutes later they were leaving the store after Ryan bought the dress. They spent a while people watching at the food court. It was fun making up conversations between couples and groups or guessing what someone's back story was. Things got a little ridiculous when she pointed to a woman with bright pink hair and said she was a grade school teacher. Timmy couldn't remember the last time he'd spent so much time laughing, smiling, and being happy. Something about the petite girl almost made him feel normal again, almost.

"So Turner, when do we get to have an official date?"

"Do you want to go on an official date?"

Again she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, something he realized she only did when she was nervous. Sheepishly she smiled and looked down at the ground, "well….yeah."

His face heated up as he blushed. Over the past couple days he'd seriously given some thought to dating her. Ryan was sweet, cute, and made him feel like life wasn't as shitty as it seemed. However he was pretty broken, would it be fair to her to have to deal with that side of him? Sure she'd seen it, but not like his friends had. It might freak her out. Another rejection wasn't what he needed right now, at least not until he was a bit better. But what if this could help him with that? Maybe what he needed was someone new in his life to help him out of this.

"Would you wanna watch movies at my house?"

"Sure."

"Cool."


	11. Comedy Horror Night

So the day of the official first date had arrived, and with it a pair of clowns decided to make the experience as embarrassing as possible. Somehow Seth and Chester had found out what day Timmy had invited Ryan to his house and had decided to act like overbearing chaperones. For two hours the brunette was forced to deal with his best friend teasingly barking orders about how to straighten up his house, to go put on nicer clothes, what snacks to lay out, even insisting the hall bathroom be white glove spotless. Next came his friend miserably failing at imitating 'the mom voice', the one that lets you know you're in deep shit, to insist that only G rated movies be watched. He then proceeded to neatly stack all the 'appropriate' movies he could find on the coffee table. It was only when the fed up teen threw a copy of Gone With the Wind at him that the blonde finally shut up.

Poor Timmy was enjoying a moment of blissful silence when the doorbell rang. The blonde jumped up, made a show of straightening his old, worn out clothes, and opened the door to greet the siblings. And so began the blonde boys making complete fools of themselves in order to embarrass the pair.

"Hello there, welcome to our home. Forgive the mess; Timmy isn't very good at cleaning."

Groaning from his spot on the couch, the teen chucked a movie from the Chester approved pile at his friend who was able to avoid being hit.

"Timothy that isn't polite!"

A few more niceties were exchanged between the 'adults' before Chester moved to let them in. Ryan slipped around the two to take a seat on the couch looking both highly annoyed and very amused. There was a jacket that he knew belonged to her brother around her shoulders that she quickly discarded.

"Young lady you put that coat back on this instant!"

"Shut it."

If the point of making his sister wear his jacket was for modesty's sake Timmy didn't understand the point. She was wearing a black t-shirt with 'Do not feed the zombies' in red and shorts. Not exactly a scandalous outfit that would warrant her brother's reaction to the loss of the coat. Then again, the two were just being idiots.

"Okay the annoying blonde boys can leave now." Ryan made a shooing motion with her hand.

"Hey," Chester dropped the polite guy persona, "what part of we're gonna chaperone you two did you not get?"

Seth crossed his arms and nodded in agreement.

Oh shit, they were totally serious about that weren't they?

"You said you'd pick me up later meaning you leave and come back."

"Did I say that?" When his sister nodded, he went outside, closing the door, and then came back inside. "Okay I left and came back, any other objections?"

Time to change tactics. The brunette got up to face the other boys. "Come on guys, we can all hang out and watch movies another time."

Neither moved. That left him with only one other option, dirty tactics. Luckily his friends had shared with the siblings and their friends about the horror that was his tenant so this would work nicely. Seth was pretty terrified of the evil redheaded babysitter who was one of Dimmsdale's very own urban legends.

"Well if you guys don't go then Vicky might come down." Ha, both of their faces dropped. "See she's been bitching me out whenever anyone comes over so if she sees I've got more people over than I told her about….well Chester you remember what she's like, can't imagine she'd hold back like she used to."

Both blondes shared a look before 'remembering' they'd already made plans to be somewhere. One quick threat and a reminder of what time the older teen would be back to pick her up and the two were gone.

Plopping back down on the couch the pair enjoyed the silence for a few minutes. The tiny blonde smirked at him, "she's not even home is she?"

He grinned, "nope."

"Bravo."

"Thanks."

"So Turner, what're we watching?" She was going through the pile on the coffee table.

"Ignore those; you can pick one from the shelf. I'm going to make some popcorn."

When he came back she was clutching a movie with a huge grin on her face. She insisted on him not knowing what it was until the title screen came on so he let her put it in the player while he turned the tv on. Ryan practically skipped back to the couch and sat down next to him. Unconsciously he scooted away from her a bit, a habit he'd developed over the past two years. Her smile faltered some which made him feel bad so he gave her an apologetic look. Unlike his friends she didn't believe him when he said he was okay or fall for many of his fake smiles. However he didn't feel like explaining himself.

"Why do you call me Turner all the time?"

"It's your name isn't it?"

"Most people in America don't call their friends by their last name."

"If I recall correctly someone introduced himself by his last name."

"Fair enough."

He handed her the popcorn bowl and skipped to the main screen, laughing when he saw what she had picked. Sweeny Todd, of course she'd pick that one. A handful of popcorn was thrown at him as he started the movie. Unfazed he ate a piece that had landed on his shirt. The blonde glared at him until the first song started and soon they were both singing along, Timmy only knew some of the lyrics so he made up the parts he didn't know. His improvised lyrics were stupid but they made her laugh. Once Todd got to the pie shop and the pale proprietress appeared the blonde squealed in delight.

More singing and ill-fitting made up lyrics followed. It wasn't until the part where the kid found a toe in one of the pies came on that he realized he'd been scooting closer to her. When had that happened? Besides his sister he didn't like being close to other people. Sure his friends would get close but it wasn't like he had a choice, especially with Chester, idiot would simply tackle-hug him out of the blue or throw an arm around him. And pushing his friends away would freak them out more than he already had so he dealt with it. But this, he liked.

Green eyes suddenly turned to look at him, making him look back at the tv and try to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks. Glad to know he was an awkward around girls as ever, why couldn't that have changed? Oh yeah, because he was too busy keeping everyone out to deal with his own problems to bother improving his social skills. No wonder his ex left him. No! That bitch would not turn his thoughts sour, not now. Shoving those thoughts back into some corner of his mind, the brunette turned his attention back to the movie. Or he tried to; the feeling of a pair of eyes staring at you kind of makes paying attention to anything hard. He looked at his friend out of the corner of his eye to see her frowning at him.

"What?"

For a second it looked like she'd try to talk to him but then she shrugged and turned her attention back to the movie.

Once the credits started rolling he asked if she wanted to order pizza or wait. Loud noises from both their stomachs made the decision for them causing both to laugh.

After ordering they moved into the kitchen to grab some drinks and chat.

"Does she really have a problem with you having people over?"

"Hasn't complained yet so I guess not."

"So where is this demon woman anyway?"

He shrugged, "no idea, work maybe."

"Is she really as terrible as you guys make her out to be?"

"In the past yeah, she's kind of kept to herself since moving in but so far she hasn't acted like her old self."

"Okay so if she's supposedly," yeah Ryan's convinced all the Dimmsdale kids are exaggerating _a lot_ when Vicky's brought up, "such a terrible person why wouldn't you tell your dad and have her kicked out?"

That…was an excellent question that he still couldn't really answer. Part of it was knowing she didn't have anywhere to go and her being, well nice. Something told him that wasn't the whole reason, probably had something to do with him being more forgiving than most. He wasn't sure so he just shrugged.

The blonde poked his cheek and smiled. "You're a good guy Timmy Turner." Shaking his head he took a sip from his cup not seeing the wicked grin on her face, "bet she was your first crush."

Cue the burning sensation of carbonated soda exiting nose while some was inhaled into his lungs. Wide eyed he looked at her, surprised to see a mischievous look that resembled the one's he got from a certain ex-babysitter, as he coughed. It took a few minutes for him to stop coughing long enough to speak.

"Hell no!"

"Blush plus denial equals lying."

"There is no way in hell I have ever had romantic feelings for that psychotic bitch _ever_. She's one of the cruelest people to ever walk the face of this planet who made my friends and me miserable for years. That wasn't even remotely funny!" Ryan started laughing during his rant hence the reason for that last remark.

Suddenly a loud bang came from the front door making them both jump. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, there was Vicky standing in the doorway that connected the living room and kitchen with one hand on her hip and the other holding a couple pizza boxes.

The sound of tires screeching down the street broke the silence and the brunette turned to look at the older woman. His disapproving look had no effect on her; she innocently tilted her head to the side.

"What's that look for Twerp?"

"What'd you do to the delivery guy?"

"All I did was step out of my car, guy looked like he'd seen a ghost," she smirked, "told me the food was on him and left."

Timmy sighed knowing full well the poor guy had suffered at the redhead's hands at some point. To his amazement she walked around him and held out her free hand to the blonde.

"Psychotic bitch roommate Vicky, you must be the new girl Twerp here is crushing on."

They shook hands. "Ryan, Nice to finally put a face to the stories."

How quickly the atmosphere in a room changes when two people decide they don't like each other. Pleasant smiles did little to stop tension from filling the room. How the hell they decided in a few seconds that they didn't like each other he didn't know, was that a girl thing? This was going to be a problem.

Still smiling the older woman set the boxes on the counter, took a couple slices from one of them, and walked back out. But she didn't go upstairs; instead she started another movie in the living room. He apologized to Ryan, offering to ask his roommate to go to her room but the blonde told him it was alright. They put some pizza on plates and went back into the living room to see The Last Exorcism part II playing. And Vicky sitting in the middle of the couch. The teens sat on either side of her for lack of a better idea of what to do, although he suspected the blonde refused to let the redhead know she was bothered by the other's behavior. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a smirk slip through his roommate's blank expression for a fraction of a second. Great.

Halfway through the movie Ryan was watching the movie through her fingers, Timmy was enjoying the film, and Vicky was on the edge of her seat smiling. More than once the redhead had scared the blonde. Soon the brunette forced his roommate to switch seats to keep her from scaring his friend anymore. Not that it kept her from trying to get the younger girl worked up.

He did his best to keep the peace. Sadly there's not much he could do because Vicky is, well Vicky. She still scared the hell out of him.

Finally the movie was over and Seth was outside waiting for his sister to come out so they could go home. The teens were in the kitchen putting food up.

"I'm really sorry about Vicky, she usually stays in her room when people come over."

"It's not your fault, she's a bitch."

"And you aren't?" Shit.

Pink eyes were filled with hate as they looked at the blonde. Seriously what the hell made them hate each other so quick? "Ya know, little brats like you always repulsed me. Play sweet for a while then go in for the kill." She crossed the room to stand in front of the smaller girl, evil grin on her face. "Girls like you make people like me look like saints." Then she hissed something in Ryan's ear that he couldn't hear. Whatever it was pissed the blonde off. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes before she ran out of the house.

He called out to her but she ignored him. The car was already out of his driveway by the time he got to the front door. When he turned around his roommate had a very smug look on her face as she said good night and went upstairs.

What the fuck just happened?!


	12. Fighting To Understand

Over the next couple of weeks the growing tension in the Turner household was reaching a critical point. No explanation had been given as to why the older woman picked a fight with the blonde nor was he ever told what was whispered to the blonde. Ryan told him it was nothing but would no longer come over to his house. They were still friends, well somewhere between friends and being a couple, but it was obvious the encounter with the ex-babysitter had bothered her. What was stranger was the sudden change in behavior of his roommate if that's what you call it. Really it was Vicky reverting back to her old self a bit. Three days after scaring off his date the redhead came downstairs to find him, his friends, and her sister in the living room playing video games. Instead of going back to her room she'd commandeered the sofa, taken out her phone, and quietly sat there, occasionally glancing up at the television.

At first the group of ex-victims had nervously fidgeted not knowing what to do. Instinct told them to vacate the premises immediately but seeing their bucktoothed friend glare at the she-devil eased their fears some. Chester was the first to recover, returning his attention to the game. Soon enough the blonde was once again cursing at his character, cheering when he was successful, and being his normal goofy self. That helped the other boys relax and return to the game. Well, Elmer was explaining it to his girlfriend and her friend. Veronica wasn't paying attention, too busy moping since her boyfriend hadn't been able to come. Only one person wasn't avoiding all eye contact with the woman on the sofa, her little sister.

Why the raven haired girl had decided to come over rather than join her boyfriend for an all day shopping spree was a mystery. Now she was sending hateful looks to her sibling, waiting for any excuse to snap at her. A difficult task considering Vicky hadn't acknowledged the presence of the group since taking the sofa. All her attention was focused on the device in her hands broken only by the occasional explosion from the game. That seemed to only annoy her younger sister more.

Seeing Tootie's rage building, Trixie suggested they go to the movies to see some new horror film. It was a movie several of them wanted to see, Tootie included, but the raven haired girl dismissed the suggestion as stupid. There was some lame excuse about waiting until everyone could go together, not that she really cared if Francis or Remy missed out.

"But, like, don't you want to see it?" Veronica asked.

"Of course I do but not without my boyfriend."

"That's not what you said last week when we went to watch that action movie he's been dying to see." Chester mumbled never looking away from the screen.

He hadn't meant for her to hear him but she did. Angry, the girl stood up with her hands on her hips. "The only reason you guys want to leave is to get away from _that_."

Pointing to her sister, who was still calmly messing with her phone, Tootie crossed her arms when she got no reaction from the redhead. Were they seriously trying to see who'd snap at the other first? Yes, yes they were, and Tootie was losing.

"Tootie that's not –"

"Yes it is! Elmer and Sanjay look like they're about to wet themselves, A.J.'s gone into robot mode, and everyone else is uncomfortable with her being here. This is Timmy's house; none of us should have to leave just because she's here."

Timmy gave his controller to Elmer, got up, and dragged his ex into the kitchen. "Whether you like it or not she lives here too. I know you'd love to bitch her out but not here. Pick a fight with her somewhere else but not in my house. You can either come with us to the movies or you can take your sorry ass home."

"I can't believe you're defending her!"

"I'm not. I'm pissed off at her too but at the end of the day I still have to live with her. All I want is for you to quit trying to pick a fight."

There was a brief standoff as the pair waited to see who would back down first. Luckily angry Tootie was impatient; upset the girl left the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

And that was when tensions began to flare up as one by one his friends were scared out of the house by his roommate in under a week. Three days after Tootie stormed out the group came back to the house to find her sharpening a double headed battle axe in the kitchen. He hadn't heard from Sanjay or Elmer since but Trixie told him they were okay. Speaking of which the two popular girls stopped coming around too, more because Elmer wasn't than Vicky being scary. That left A.J. and Chester as the only people out of all of his friends willing to set foot in his home. Not that the young genius lasted much longer. All it took was him hearing maniacal laughter upstairs before he rushed out of the house.

For three days the blonde continued to visit his best friend. Then the inevitable happened, his best friend gave him an apologetic look before leaving. Timmy had gone upstairs to grab a game in his room to find the redhead smirking on the couch while his friend stood with his back against the wall looking terrified. He'd tried asking what had happened but didn't receive a response. Chester would tell him what happened later when he'd calmed down.

Catching the smug smirk on her face, the brunette felt his blood boil. Everything he'd done to keep her from being kicked out by his dad and she terrorizes all of his friends. If he hadn't lied to his dad she'd be out on the street and that's when it hit him. The stupid bitch had played him, he knew she was a master manipulator yet he'd still fallen for her act. Nothing bad had happened to her since she'd left, she'd seen that he was broken and used it to her advantage. Sometimes it sucks being willing to forgive people.

"Something the matter Twerp?"

Cocky brat.

"What the hell is your problem?"

Her face fell, his voice was creepy calm despite how pissed off he looked. People that do that need to be handled very carefully.

"Just having a bit of fun."

"You think it's fun to scare my friends? After what you did to us for most of our childhoods?"

"Didn't mean anythin' by it."

"You stupid, manipulative bitch!" Some part of him purred in satisfaction at seeing her jump as he began to shout at her, "Do you have to make everyone around you miserable?! I kept my dad from throwing your sorry self out, is it really too much to ask that you _try_ to act like a decent human being while you stay here?"

Vicky looked nervous, he kept getting louder and someone was bound to hear. Mr. Turner would kick her out for real this time.

"Oh now you're sorry? Worried my dad's gonna hear?"

"I –"

"Shut up! For once you're going to shut your trap and listen got it?" He glared until she nodded. "Good. Because if you keep playing me with this bogus sob story I won't hesitate to have my dad throw you out. My friends shouldn't have to be afraid to come over, keep terrorizing them and my dad finds out Tootie was telling the truth."

Unaccustomed to being threatened, the redhead rose up her own anger flaring up. "Don't you threaten me Turner, I've still got some dirt on you."

"And who are you going to tell? My dad won't believe you and my mother won't give a damn. So go right ahead."

Well this was a surprising bit of information, when was the last time she met someone she couldn't keep in line with a few threats? This wasn't the Twerp she remembered.

"Oh there are always plenty of people to make your life miserable with the right information."

"Go ahead! My life's already hell thanks to my mother and your sister. So why not let you make it worse, hell go right ahead! Can't imagine how you can make it worse than it already is. Here I was thinking Tootie was worse than you ever were but you've proved me wrong. Even after all you've done I never thought you'd sink so low as to make the one person in the town trying to help you miserable. You've got a pretty poor way of showing gratitude Vicky."

Something about what he said seemed to strike a nerve. Her anger disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Sitting back on the couch, the older woman held her head in her hands, taking a few deep breaths before looking at him. She looked tired and…a little vulnerable? No it was just part of the act, it had to be. With a sigh she sat up and motioned for him to sit too. Since his own rage was quickly subsiding he decided to humor her for a moment and sat on the other end. They faced each other for a moment before the redhead started speaking.

"…I don't do this often so listen up. I'm…sorry, for the scaring the misfits off. Not sorry for my sister storming off though, little brat was getting on my nerves. Also not sorry for making Miss Priss run off, believe me you'll be glad I did later."

He stared at her for a few seconds then one corner of his mouth tugged up in a tiny smile, "that was the worst apology I have ever heard."

"Haven't had much practice."

"I wonder why."

"So life sucks for you worse than before? Welcome to the club Twerp."

"What do you mean?"

She laughed. "Like I haven't been hearing all the rumors you brats have been spreading since I left. Most of it false but a few are close or spot on."

Confused he asked her what she meant.

"Ever wonder why I only had a few boxes and my car? Damn ex left me with nothing, even took money from my private account. Came home to find all the locks changed and had to leave a few things behind."

"You were…..married?" The thought seemed ridiculous, who would willingly marry her?

"Yup, wasn't a good time in my life but it's all behind me now."

There was silence for a while before she spoke again. "Look, I don't terrorize your band of misfit friends or the shitty girlfriend and you don't tell anyone I apologized, deal?"

"No more sharpening objects with blades?"

"Only in the privacy of my own room."

"…Guess that's as good a deal as I can get from you."

"Deals with the devil, never the best but better than nothing."

Maybe adding a bit of insurance on that to be safe, "Mess with them and you're out of here."

"Probably doesn't mean much to ya, but you have my word Turner." She held out her hand and they shook on it. "My sister's fair game though."

Groaning he got up to head back upstairs, "Don't tear my house apart when you two finally go at it."

"No promises. Twerp?"

He stopped to look at her.

"Sorry to hear you life's gone to shit too."


	13. Peace Is Overrated

Was there an ingrained predisposition that drove women to be so difficult? He was convinced there was due to the sheer amount of stress they brought to the lives of others. And the ones in his life were no different. Combined with the other stressors in his life, they would probably be driven to an early grave. Trying to keep the peace between those he was friends with, tolerating one who despised him, and figuring out another, it was a bit much at times.

Things with Ryan were as normal as he could hope for after the incident with Vicky and seeing as neither was about to tell him what was said he brushed it off as nothing more than two strong willed women trying to intimidate the other. Now the tiny blonde took the stories told about the babysitter from hell more seriously, questioning his friends about the past abuse they suffered. In no time she and Trixie, who was really a caring person once she dropped the snobby façade, were in agreement that he should make the redhead leave as soon as she could afford a place on her own. After hearing about all of his friends being too terrified to return to the Turner house she urged him to get his dad to kick her out. While that was by far the best course of action and the most sensible one once all her past actions were taken into consideration, he couldn't do it. They'd made a deal and he wasn't about to go back on it when she was _attempting_ to keep her end.

Surprisingly Vicky had made attempts to keep her word. Only a week ago he'd coaxed Chester back into the house after a lot of assuring, bribing, and a bit of begging. If he could show that an effort was being made by his roommate to try to act like the average human that passed the threshold of his home then they wouldn't have to worry, or nag him, about it. The blonde was the best person to help him accomplish this as whatever opinion he gave on her behavior would be honest; no sugar coating for his friend's sake, no fear driving him to downplay any worrisome signs that she was going to once again be a terror. Now when he said she was attempting to be better it didn't mean she wasn't messing with his friend for laughs. Apparently she'd made some threats when he was nine that still freaked him out which she'd brought up that day he ran out of the house and continued to bring up to make sure he remembered his place. Other than that she didn't bother them. Actually she'd been civil the last time Chester'd been over. Believe it or not she greeted him the same way she did Timmy, a quick hey followed by a nickname (Snaggletooth). No luck in getting the others to brave a visit yet though.

As for whether or not he believed her story about an ex-husband, he had come to the conclusion that she was telling the truth. Was it the whole truth, no but that didn't change the fact that it was true. Sure there was plenty of contradictory evidence from her past but his own logic had ultimately been the deciding factor. That and the fact that the woman's pride wouldn't stand for receiving charity she didn't need. Lying, cheating, manipulating, all ways for her to get what she wanted by her own means. Charity required letting someone feel pity for her. And if there was one thing Vicky hated above all else it was being perceived as weak. No one would ever convince him this was all some elaborate ploy for some unseen goal. There was no way her pride would allow her to rely on the kindness of others, to be dependent on them, unless it was absolutely necessary and even then she'd only bear it until she was back on her feet. Another big reason was because owing anyone else a debt would drive her insane. Debts gave one person varying levels of control of the other. Why would a power hungry person like her give that to someone willingly?

Then there was the younger she-devil who now had it in for him. Unless they stopped fighting Tootie would soon loathe him as much as she hated her own sister, which he really didn't have a problem with. Their friendship ended a long time ago so it wouldn't really be much of a loss. Thing was, they still shared some friends who would be forced to choose a side, he couldn't put them through that. For their sakes, along with a week of being pestered by the rich girl duo, he went to see if it was possible to patch things up with Tootie. They'd argued until a shaky compromise had been reached; Tootie wouldn't start anything on his family's property and he wouldn't complain when she bitched about her sister. Other conditions applying solely to him were also made before she'd agree to it. It was hardly fair and a terrible solution to the problem but it'd do for the time being.

Veronica and Trixie, they were good friends most of the time, until Tootie was pissed off. Since there was no way she'd budge first the pair made him apologize first. It wasn't fair to put him in that situation merely to keep their social standing at school intact but it was nothing new. Better he dealt with whatever was making them walk on eggshells than get their boyfriends involved when he ignored their complaints. Elmer would complain nonstop about how much grief Tootie gave Trixie, how it upset her, and wishing he knew how to fix it. At least Francis came right out and told him to make things right. Life was easier when his ex was kept relatively happy.

Finally there was his dear mother. There never seemed to be an appropriate word or collection of words to describe that shattered relationship. Everything he did, everything about him, he was a never ending disappointment. Every flaw was used to snuff out any sense of self worth or confidence he managed to get from being around people that cared. Which was why they rarely exchanged more than a few words these days, should she managed to get more in she'd start to tear him apart with verbal abuse. Lately he hardly even got a glimpse of her other than dropping Hope off at her apartment or by chance seeing her before her latest boyfriend sped away from his house. In a way he was thankful for that.

However there were days it gave him mini heart attacks. His dad was driving him home after training for his new job when they saw his mother speeding away. Ms. Turner was not a patient woman, if he didn't answer the door she left Hope sitting on the doorstep. Timmy had lost track of the number of times he'd pleaded with her to walk the short distance over to the Dinklebergs' instead to avoid having his sister sit outside in the elements. Wanda could always be counted on to bring her inside as long as it wouldn't draw attention but with another human in the house she couldn't risk it. All she could do was use her magic to look after the child until he, his dad, or neighbors were able to get her. Thirty seconds later they pulled into the Dinklebergs' driveway and the brunette had been out the door and across the yard before his father had stopped the car. Oddly enough the front door was open, had his fairies done that? His mother no longer had a key and his roommate was out for the day so it probably was them.

So imagine his surprise when he saw his roommate, the living nightmare of every child who met her, holding a giggling Hope. The little girl had managed to grab fistfuls of red hair to the older woman's displeasure and there wasn't much she could do about it. One hand was holding the child while the other was occupied by the decorative bowl that had been on the coffee table. Hope had probably picked it up when the redhead let her roam around. The appropriate thing to do would be to help but the brunette instead stood in the doorway laughing. It was hard to remember this woman was evil, had chased him with medieval weapons, and meant to be feared when she looked so out of her element trying to dislodge the tiny hands from her hair.

Seeing her brother, the raven haired girl gave both fists a yank.

"Dammit Turner come get this brat!"

"Nah, looks like you've got it covered."

"TWERP!"

Rather than take the source of Vicky's pain, who was trying to grab more of the red locks, he took the bowl and went into the kitchen. He could hear squeals of delight from his sister as she was reprimanded. When he returned he couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his ex-babysitter holding the happy child at arm's length, still reaching for the woman's hair. So small children were her weakness, go figure.

"Hate 'em this young; not old enough to scare into shape and still fragile."

"You just don't know what to do with a kid who _likes_ you."

"Don't be silly you all loved me."

"Funny. Did my mother say anything?"

She handed the girl to him before plopping down on the couch. " 'I'm not paying you', " she smirked, "and 'back for her in a month'. "

Hope buried her face in his shirt, cooing happily. "A month? School starts back next week!"

"You could always let me babysit."

He gave her a skeptical look. "….no."

"Jeez Turner, only tryin' to help."

Rolling his eyes, Timmy put Hope on the floor, went to the hall closet, and pulled out the baby gate to put in front of the stairs. The child immediately made her way over to the redhead. "Mrs. Dinkleberg watches her while I'm at school."

"Yeah and she'll be thrilled to be stuck with a kid until you get off work too. Look my manager is switching me to the day shift, I can watch Twerpette while you wor- What's with that look?"

_ Oh I don't know maybe because there's always a catch._

"What's the catch?"

There was a pause she considered lying but she was still on thin ice for the whole scaring-his-friends thing so it was in her best interest to be honest. "I don't work for free."

With a shake of his head he went into the kitchen to get dinner started.

"Hey Turner."

_Don't._ Despite himself, he looked back at her.

The sly smirk on her face was a bad sign, "I accept alternate forms of payment."

"Ow! What the hell was that for?"

"I'm sick of having my hair pulled."

Hard to believe but that was Chester who just yelled at Vicky for smacking him upside the head. He and Timmy were sitting on the floor of the living room among a sea of markers when she came home from work. Both teens were covered in a rainbow of scribbles, as was the black haired child happily coloring her hands green and pink. A moment earlier the blonde had allowed Hope to yank his hair which prompted Vicky to smack him. Five days of slowly teaching her not to pull hair down the drain.

"Why the hell are you idiots letting her color on skin?"

"Relax they're washable." The blonde replied.

Ever since he'd been coaxed back into the house the blonde readily exploited his friend's newfound control over the redhead to get away with things he never would have dared otherwise. It was still a gamble on if he'd get away with talking smack so he stuck by his friend to be on the safe side. Timmy was practically her landlord so she couldn't stop him from saying whatever he wanted but she wouldn't hesitate to put the blonde back in his place. The problem was finding a way to do that without breaching their understanding. Verbal threats that were carefully worded and the occasional smack to the head were probably treading the line but they worked, to an extent. Brat was losing his fear of her faster than she'd like.

"That's doesn't mean its okay."

"What's the big deal? She's having fun."

Too annoyed to deal with them she went upstairs muttering something about teaching Chester about respect.

No matter how much she wanted to act like she didn't, Vicky couldn't deny the soft spot she'd developed for the little girl. Not that it kept her from being annoyed with the many bad habits he and Chester let her get away with. Hope was allowed to do as she pleased when she came to visit which had been fine and dandy until her motor skills got better and she learned to talk. He should teach her coloring on the furniture, walls, and people were bad, people aren't giant, unfeeling toys, and not everyone's phone was for her to play with. But he also had a hard time no letting her get away with things since her life in their mother's apartment was probably hell. On the other hand he didn't want her to grow up to be a little brat no one wanted anything to do with like some people he knew (_Tootie_). Discipline wasn't something he was good with enforcing, not even with his godbrother. There was a reason Wanda no longer left him to look after the child alone. He never enforced anything the fairy tried to teach her son, at times undoing her hard work. Some of Poof's bad habits were his fault, especially the toddler's willfulness.

His best friend was worse than he was about letting her get away with things. Unfortunately neither of them would probably follow through with disciplining her…They'd make terrible parents.

"Wha'cha doin' Hope?"

The child was standing at the baby gate blocking the stairs, markers long forgotten, squealing when the redhead reappeared. Astonished, the blonde looked at his friend. This was the first time he was seeing Hope's fondness for Vicky for himself.

"I know, it doesn't make sense."

With a snicker the blonde began to gather up the markers while Timmy picked up the papers. Meanwhile Vicky sat on the couch with the raven haired child in tow. There was an all too familiar look on the blonde's face, he was bursting to say something he shouldn't. Great.

"Got something you wanna say Snaggletooth?"

"He doesn't _need_ to say it." The brunette muttered.

"Didn't ask you now did I Twerp?...And what do you think you're doing Twerpette?"

_ Trying to untie your shoes by the looks of it._

Vicky picked the child up and set Hope in her lap. "well Blondie?"

A quick evaluation of the situation and Chester decided it was safe to say whatever he'd been thinking. Should things go south he'd have a few seconds head start before she could give chase, so why not?

"Hope probably doesn't mind you since you're not human."

"Are you implying I'm a demon Chester?" There was the faintest hint of an edge to her voice when she said his name that sent him scrambling to hide behind the unamused brunette. She cackled at the looks on their faces; one had been successfully had a fear of her reborn while the other had a I'm-sick-of-your-bullshit look. Looking down at the little girl in her lap, "what do you think Twerpette?"

In response Hope clumsily stood up to grab at the hair at the top of the woman's head.

"Stop trying to show them my horns!"

"How is your sister not afraid of _that_?"

"No idea. Where are you going?"

Vicky had gotten up, holding Hope, and was going to the kitchen. "To wash the marker off."

Both tried to keep a straight face because their ex-babysitter had a faint green spot on one cheek and pink on the other. They managed to succeed until the water started running.

"Dude!"

"Yup."

"Her kryptonite's little kids! How funny is that?"

Something in the kitchen was knocked over. "If that information ever makes its way to another human Blondie I will drill holes to the nerves of every one of your teeth and make you eat ice!"

Said blonde laughed nervously. That was not an empty threat.

The loud chiming from Timmy's phone made them both jump.

"Shit."

"What?"

"Forgot I told Ryan we'd hang out today."

"Invite her over."

"After what happened last time? No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yup." To the brunette's dismay his friend took his phone. Several minutes were spent banging on the bathroom door where Chester had barricaded himself. When he emerged he looked very smug.

"Asshole."

"The nicest one you'll ever meet. Ryan's coming over."

"What?! How, when?"

"Told her you wanted to introduce her to Hope, that Vicky was working, and now."

Timmy was dumbfounded. What was his friend thinking?

"You –"

"Later man." Before he could receive more than a couple of insults Chester was out the door.

Yeah, there was no way this could go wrong, absolutely none. It wasn't like his roommate, for unknown reasons, hated the girl on her way over. This would be interesting.

Back in the living room he found Hope playing with some of her toys that the redhead had gotten out of his room, including her mutant bear. Vicky was sitting on the stairs messing around on her laptop.

"So Blondie left in a hurry."

"Are you seriously hiding on the stairs?"

"Nope."

"Can you behave while a friend is over?"

Curious she looked up from her screen, "I haven't been?"

"Chester invited the blonde girl you chased out over, she thinks you're at work."

Damn that smug smirk, "really? This is gonna be fun."

"You promised."

"Oh I know and I'll be on my very best behavior for your lady friend."

"Smartass."

Cheeky bitch winked. "You know it."

With no other options, Timmy sat in the floor to play with Hope which more or less meant being a jungle gym to wait for the inevitable. His friend had left with his phone so he couldn't try to get in touch with Ryan before she got there. He'd finally started to relax when the doorbell rang and to his horror, the redhead was opening the door before he could get up.

"Well hey there." Vicky had one of her trademark evil smirks plastered on her face as she looked down at the petite blonde. "Lover boy can't wait to see you."

The blonde looked at him then back at the redhead who was moving into the kitchen. She didn't look too pleased to see Vicky again. Nevertheless she smiled at him. "Hey Turner."

"Hi. Sorry 'bout that, Chester stole my phone."

She shrugged as she sat on the couch. "Its fine. So that's your sister?"

Hope didn't notice a new person was in the room. So many people came and went in her own home that she no longer looked up when the door opened or reacted to unfamiliar voices. She was too busy playing with a pack of stickers that she'd found to pay attention to anything.

"Yeah this is Hope."

"Cutie."

"Hey Hope, want to say hi?"

Looking up, the child looked to her brother then to the new person on the couch. Hazel eyes widened before she held her bear to her face, some kind of if-I-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me thing. Here he was hoping that she wouldn't do that.

"Aw, you shy?"

He swore he heard a quiet chuckle from the kitchen but that could have been his imagination. Picking her up he tried to coax her to look up from her Franken-bear. Sometimes it worked when Trixie was around so it was worth a shot but no such luck. The child refused to look at the blonde.

"She's afraid of girls."

Ryan frowned. "How come?"

"I have no idea, she does it to every time." Almost every time.

Kneeling down in front of the siblings, Ryan talked to Hope in that soft voice people use with infants. Not that it helped. Then Hope did something she hadn't done in a while, she started shaking. That wasn't good. Next she'd start crying.

But before he could do anything his sister was taken from him and in Vicky's arms. The woman talked to the child just as she would anyone else. "What's wrong Twerpette?"

A tiny smiled appeared on the child's face. When the woman pulled an angry face the girl giggled. Both teens were sat in silence. Ryan couldn't believe a child would like the woman before her and Timmy, well he really wanted to go hide under a rock. This was worse than last time if only because of the know-your-place-bitch look the redhead was giving the blonde.

Women weren't worth the drama.


	14. Playing House

For the first time in months Timmy found himself somewhere unfamiliar in his dreams. There was nothing in the room, no windows, no furniture, no source of light, no signs of anything to tell any of the walls, floor, or ceiling apart. Everything was white, bright white. It was a bit blinding. He tried to shield his eyes but the brightness kept finding a way to make seeing difficult. Finally he covered his eyes waiting for something to happen, anything to happen. After what felt like an eternity the light began to dim. Uncovering his eyes, the brunette saw that the walls, ceiling, and floor had all turned a light grey blue.

Cautiously he walked up to one of the walls to run his hands over it. Things were never what they seemed in his nightmares, anything could happen. He slowly made his way around the room, hoping to feel a door or find an opening, something. But there wasn't, the walls were smooth and solid, and he was trapped. So he sat in a corner and waited for some terror or other to make an appearance, anything to make this stupid place more bearable.

Time didn't seem to exist in the room. The more he waited the less time seemed to pass. Why wasn't something happening? Where the hell was he?

Suddenly he could hear what sounded like distant knocking. First from one direction and then from another until the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Irritating, that was what it was, more so than the sound of pencils furiously writing away back in the classroom. Then it all stopped, dead silence followed by a quite knock from the other side of the wall. Confused he stood up to see if it would happen again. It didn't, instead he heard another knock not too far away, another pause, another knock a bit further away. Someone was walking around knocking on the walls!

At this point he didn't care if they were friend or foe, he just wanted to get the hell out of there. So he started knocking on the wall. Whoever was knocking outside began to make their way back towards him. He jumped when a loud knock from the other side of the wall broke the silence but quickly regained his composure and knocked back.

"Found you." That voice, how could it be so familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time?

He yelped when a sudden burst of light temporarily blinded him. Once he was able to see again he found himself back in the hallway from his nightmares. The sound of claws clicking on the floor sent him running but his curiosity made him look back. Heading in the opposite direction, tails tucked and whimpering were a few of the creatures that mauled him every night. Down the hall, between him and the creatures was the hooded figure from the classroom.

Just as he turned around to face them, everything began to fade out.

"Timmy?"

Still half asleep, the teen rolled over and ended up falling off the edge of his bed. "Ow."

"You alright sport?" Asked the pink haired woman standing above him, concerned that he'd hurt himself.

"Yeah I'm fine."

"You were having a nightmare weren't you?"

Rather than answer he sat up to see if he'd woken up the two small children that had insisted on sharing his bed. Separately he could get the duo to mind him, better than his fairies anyway, but throw the pair together and all bets were off. They fed off each other's energy, add in Poof's magic and good luck getting them to go to bed. Typically Timmy would wish up a second bed for them to avoid waking them when he inevitably tossed and turned, once in a while they stayed in the four year old's room in the castle, but last night they were dead set on sleeping with him. Only reason he'd even been able to get them to sleep in the first place was because Wanda whipped up some sweets that made them tired. Thankfully they hadn't woken up. _Thank you Wanda for waking me up_.

"…Sort of."

She tried to ask more about it but thought better of it, it wasn't like she'd get a straight answer anyway.

After waiting a minute to make sure they wouldn't wake up the teen left the fairy to watch over the kids, mainly to keep Poof from being discovered if for some reason Vicky walked in unannounced. The house was dark and quiet, there were still a couple of hours before he needed to get ready for school and drop Hope off with Mrs. Dinkleberg. A few months ago if he found himself in this situation there would be plenty of little chores to keep him busy until getting ready for the day. Now there wasn't. When he was at work Chester came over to look after Hope and normally he'd come home to whatever mess the pair had made but, according to his friend, the redhaired she-devil kept the house picked up. Odd since she never cleaned anything back when she babysat. Sure he expected her to clean up after herself but not keep house. Hell he hadn't heard a single complaint from her about his friend making a mess that she cleaned up rather than make him do it once his shift was over.

Slightly annoyed to not have the distraction anymore he laid down on the couch to think back on the dream he'd had. This mysterious person that suddenly appeared twice now, that stopped his nightmares in their tracks, that was trying to help him, why were they there? What could have prompted his subconscious into making that happen? Surely not coming up with more terrifying monsters to torment him would be a simpler feat. _Maybe it didn't come from me_. No that didn't make sense. Then again…Hadn't that feral version of him said this was all a reflection of his deteriorating mental health?

Pushing that question aside, he went back to the origin of the hooded figure. Nothing about his waking hours could have caused this person to manifest, they pulled him back from the brink once, but why? A last ditch effort to rescue his sanity maybe but was there really even a point anymore? Or…nausea overcame him at the thought that this was a cruel trick his mind was playing on him, the same part that brought Cat to like, meant to lull him into a false sense of hope before destroying him.

Whatever the reason for the figure wandering around in his sleep, he hoped they would go away. Better for them to not be there than to potentially cause him more misery.

It wasn't until the stairs creaked that he realized he'd dozed off. Looking up he saw his roommate pausing on the steps for a second before going about her business. That meant it was about time for him to go get ready for school and get Hope ready to go next door. Back upstairs he found a very stressed out fairy unsuccessfully trying to take her son's wand away while staying under the younger child happily giggling in the air.

"Poof stop that put her down right now!"

"No."

"You do as I say this instant or I'll take all your human toys away."

The four year old's face fell at the threat. His collection of human toys was carefully guarded from his parents after they decided to 'spruce them up' last year. Several hours were spent calming him down from the resulting tantrum in which he rampaged in downtown Dimmsdale and Fairyworld as a purple clam-dragon thing. Timmy wasn't sure why the toddler loved novelty toys so much, he'd given him the first just to see what the young fairy would do with his magic to make it better. Since then he regularly brought more home or took the child into town with him to pick one out. Another reason his parents tried so hard to instill a fear of humans into him. Something that would probably never happed since his godbrother took him around them so much. However his fairies had asked him not to buy the child anymore toys, a request he 'forgot' about once in a while.

Upset, the boy turned himself into a purple clam and his mother barely caught Hope before she dropped to the floor. With a huff the little girl squirmed free of the fairy and plopped down next to the clam, patting it sympathetically. "Poof good."

Well that was different, she didn't normally talk around Wanda or really anyone other than him, Chester, and sometimes Poof. Often it was meaningless babbling towards the young fairy, babbling he understood, but hardly any English words.

Both fairies were magiked away into the fish bowl so the family could get ready for their day and the siblings could get ready for their's. An hour later the teen was carrying his sister, her bag, and his school bag downstairs, there was just enough time for him to make breakfast before school. Leaving the bags in the living room he walked into the kitchen to find his roommate adding more pancakes to a growing stack on a plate, way too many for one person.

"Morning Twerp and Twerpette."

"What are you doing?"

"Making food, now go sit."

Confused he looked to see the table set. Turns out having breakfast with your not-so-evil ex-babysitter and baby sister is as weird as it sounds. No conversation as they ate but it also wasn't an awkward or uncomfortable silence…Okay maybe a little awkward, it did remind him of his life a few years back, eating breakfast with his parents before everything went bad…Yeah that did not make things any less weird. Nor did the woman's insistence that he leave her to clean up, that right there wasn't normal but he was cutting it close so he let her have her way.

At school his friends pointed out he seemed in a better mood, one Chester was convinced was because his friend had finally asked Ryan to be his girlfriend. While that probably played some role, the brunette wasn't so sure it was the sole reason even though he couldn't come up with any other. Maybe a not so restless night's sleep or the fact that he and Tootie hadn't been butting heads lately. She wasn't over him trying to undermine her authority over their friends by any means, but also wasn't picking fights. Judging by the shiny new, top of the line cell phone and laptop, her rich boyfriend was once again paying attention to her and she returned it to keep the flow of fancy gifts coming.

Reasons aside their friends were happy for the little bit of a breather it provided. Tootie was more tolerable to be around while he was getting better. As far as they were concerned that was a sign that things were slowly returning to normal…well as normal as you can get in Dimmsdale.

After the last bell rang Chester went off to watch Hope while his friend worked and Timmy waited for his dad to take him to work. However the strange peacefulness of the day was destroyed about a half hour into his shift when he received texts from his best friend. For some reason the blonde's dad grounded him for his poor grades. They were two weeks into a new term, how could he be doing that bad already? Also, since when did his dad start punishing him for his school performance? It was no secret he saved his grades by the skin of his teeth for the last three years but he'd never been grounded for it. What was weirder was the absence of the neighbors and Mr. Turner, who had told his son they all planned on having a nice dinner at home then watch a movie, which left the teen with no choice but to leave the child in the care of the pink eyed she-demon. Let's just say that sent Timmy Turner into a panic for the remainder of his shift, honestly if you wouldn't have the same reaction there is something very wrong with you.

One last problem, with his father no longer answering his phone after his mysterious disappearance with the Dinklebergs, the teen now had no way to get home. None of his friends were allowed to drive anywhere but to and from school on week days so he had to walk. Actually he ran home, worried about his roommate being left alone with his sister, changed or not that was a terrifying thought.

Unfortunately running home gave him plenty of time to relive all the horrors he experienced as a child at the hands of his roommate. Those memories quickly led his panicked mind to think up countless ways his sibling could be mentally or emotionally traumatized. Irrational as it was, the woman wasn't foolish enough to try something that could get her tossed out on the street, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Fear and panic gave way to anger, anger that, if she was back to her old tricks, she would dare do so to his sister. Before he could stop himself he was coming up with malicious threats.

Finally back on his street it wasn't long before he burst in the front door completely out of breath. There was a squeal of delight before a pair of tiny arms latched onto his leg. Looking down he saw his sister no worse for wear than if Chester had watched her, minus the multicolored marker lines from coloring time. Hope raised her arms up, giggling when she was picked up, but her brother was distracted. Vicky was on the couch looking pretty hurt but not surprised that he'd rushed home to check on the little girl. Both of them knew some things can't be forgotten.

"Hey Twerp."

"Uh…hi?"

"Whatever." Definitely offended that he thought she'd try something. "Me and Twerpette had pizza, leftovers are in the fridge."

Now he felt bad. "Vicky I–"

"Icky!"

_ Huh?_

The little girl was pointing at the older woman, grinning from ear to ear. "Icky."

"Uh…?"

"Blondie's apparently been teaching her my name's 'Icky' unless you wanna fess up to it."

"No, uh..I didn't…" _Dammit Chester._

With a dismissive wave of her hand the redhead went upstairs to her room.

Great, just what he needed. Going upstairs he wondered if Vicky would be as hard to apologize to as her sister, hopefully she'd be less bitchy.

Hours later he was still trying to word his apology as well as the best way to say it. He had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to say but the thought of saying it to _her_, it wasn't easy. Actually the thought of apologizing to either was hard. On one hand he only made up with Tootie for the sake of others, he never meant a word of it. Then she'd point out how the entire thing was his fault, why he was wrong, it tried his patience. At one point he'd have felt the same towards the elder but…she looked like he'd accused her of doing whatever act she thought was the most despicable thing a human could do. And he couldn't help the guilt at letting his thoughts get out of hand when he saw her be nicer to Hope than anyone else every day. Had he overreacted some?

Two parts of him began to argue, one saying he was fully justified in behaving the way he did and it served her right for those years of anguish. The other, his more forgiving nature probably, pointed out the changes in her since her reappearance, pointing particular instances that would seem insignificant were it anyone else. A third, far louder voice simply said 'I don't know'. Well weren't they helpful, now he was even more confused.

Beside him, Hope whined, he'd been fidgeting while having his internal struggle. With a quick tap on the night stand that the fish bowl sat on he got up to go downstairs. What he really needed was a distraction for a bit, just until he cleared his head and could revisit the question of whether or not he'd been unreasonable in panicking earlier. However there was nothing he could use to distract himself with, no dirty dishes, no straightening up the living room or putting toys away, all the things that should have been waiting to be done since he hadn't bothered before hiding in his room. It made his guilt grow knowing she'd been nice enough to do that despite him making her feel bad.

At the same time he was irritated to not have the welcomed distraction, actually just her tendency to keep the house cleaned up in general. What else was he supposed to do in the early morning hours when he couldn't sleep or needed time to collect his thoughts? School work used to be the backup but now that he absorbed more information in class it didn't help. Internet was out, the desktop in his room would eventually wake his sister and she was a grouchy little thing when her sleep was interrupted. Mind numbing television was easily tuned out plus there was never anything good on at this time of night. He wasn't a big reader either so that was out.

With no better ideas he laid down on the couch, at least if he fell asleep he wouldn't wake up the occupants of his room. For a while he stared up at the ceiling, looking for outlines or figures in the material. After that he tried going over material from class, they were still on basic stuff so that didn't last. Last he tried something the girls had been suggesting he give a shot for months, meditation. Eyes closed he slowly started quieting his thoughts, mentally shoving a few in closets or down deep wells, some of them he had to go back to several times before they were shut out. He didn't notice the nothingness fading to grey or the low rumbling building into a growl, not until it was too late anyway.

Grey gave way to white. As everything focused dark spots appeared that soon enough took on color, brown and red, eventually it was all crisp and clear but notably different. It was the hallway, his blood smeared on the walls and floor, but it wasn't right. Behind him something was growling¸ what he saw when he turned around was one of the creatures with its teeth bared, body tense, eyes trained a couple feet to his left…Wait, what? Looking over he saw the mysterious hooded figure, completely at ease despite the threat poised to attack in front of them. Even this close he couldn't make out a single feature about them, the hood has pulled too far down. Loose, travel worn clothes gave no hint to their gender or anything, all he could tell was that they were a few inches taller than he was.

Unimpressed with the creatures display, they took a step towards it and it backed off. Fifteen feet ahead of them was the hand smear, still bright red, where the entrance to the mirror room was. Which seemed to be the destination of the stranger, a destination the creature was trying to block. It continued to back up, still growling and baring its teeth, lunging when they got a couple feet away. But with a quick flash of light it was sent scurrying away. Timmy stayed beside them, wondering why he hadn't been attacked or even acknowledged.

"How'd you do that?"

Silence as they opened the door and walked in, it snapped shut behind them quickly. He tried to open it but when he reached for the knob there was nothing where his hand and arm should have been. Shocked he held his arms out in front of him with the same result. Somehow he was there yet invisible. Almost like an out of body experience, an analogy that didn't work when it was someone else he was trailing.

_ Can I go inside? Do I even want to?_

His curiosity answered in the affirmative. He could hear a voice talking on the other side, one that made his blood turn cold. Cat was talking, he couldn't make out what was being said and would prefer not finding out. Again his curiosity encouraged him to go, worst that could happen is he slams his face against the door, if the creatures couldn't see him than Cat might not be able to either.

_This is a terrible idea_. Still he walked towards the door expecting to hit the wood any second, a sensation that never occurred, instead he went through. Inside Cat was prowling around the room inside the mirrors as was his custom, eyes wide with excitement at the new toy that had found its way into his lair. There was something else though, it seemed uneasy about the intruder.

"Well, well, well, look friend we have an uninvited guest in our midst."

From inside the cell there was the quiet clinking of metal, a bit of shuffling, and there was a distinct lack of labored breathing noises. Was Cell stronger than the last time he'd been in here?

"Now look what you've done." Cruel, feline eyes glared at the hooded figure, stopping to face them. "Giving him strength, very underhanded of you, especially since you don't belong here."

He wasn't paid any mind as the figure walked up to the cell, placing a hand on the field that kept Cell inside.

"Oh! I see now." Cat clapped his hands together in delight. "Oh yes this will be far more fun now, it'll be more of a challenge now that we have another player in the game."

The figure now faced the man behind the glass. Timmy swore there was hate and anger radiating off of them despite not being able to see their face.

"You won't make a difference you know, my hold's too strong, you'll only prolong the inevitable but by all means come in and play." He stepped aside as though he were allowing the figure to cross a threshold, arm held out in invitation for them to enter. An invitation that was accepted, the figure walked towards the glass and wasn't block, they actually walked through. Well it looked more like the glass was a liquid that was allowing them to pass and a moment later they were on the other side.

Without warning the brunette shot up from his spot on the couch, head colliding with something hard, his breathing was erratic, heart racing, eyes searching for monsters that weren't there, and someone was shaking his shoulders. For several minutes he couldn't hear anything other than his pounding heart, finally he could make out another voice, annoyance masking panic.

"Earth to Twerp."

Kneeling beside him was Vicky, face a bit paler than normal.

"Jesus kid it was just a nightmare, calm down."

"S..sorry."

She rolled her eyes, "you can't exactly control them Turner."

"No…for earlier," what brought that on? Oh right, distraction to calm him down faster. "You were trying to help and I acted like an ass."

"An ass who was justified in worrying."

He shook his head. "no, I shouldn't have jumped to the worst conclusion, sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." She got up. "How long have you been havin' nightmares?"

_ Lie, she doesn't need to know anything. _

"Get them once in a while, no big deal."

She gave him a skeptical look but decided to not press it. "Go back to bed."

"Giving me orders again?"

"Friendly suggestion." Vicky smiled at the joke.

Once his heart returned to a somewhat normal rate he went back upstairs. There'd be no more sleep as he tried to make sense of what the hell had just happened in his dreams. What did Cat mean the figure didn't belong there? It had to be a part of him, where else would it come from?


	15. So Done

Two months later and life hadn't gotten any better for the brunette nor were they worse. School was going alright, work too. His friends were more or less the same as before his roommate moved in, saw his girlfriend on the weekends before or after work, and his dreams weren't any worse. Sure he was still being mauled, chased, and occasionally found himself trapped in the white room but nothing worse. Only really weird thing going on now he swore were tricks his eyes were playing on him. They did that a lot, result of not sleeping much. Still he thought he caught little side glances from the redhead who now took it upon herself to get up and make breakfast for both of them. She'd denied it the few time he mentioned it, saying she just made too much or wasn't as hungry as she thought she was. For the sake of her ego he stopped saying anything about it.

As for the glances, he ignored them. Probably nothing anyway, it wasn't like she cared. What he didn't ignore were the attempts to make conversation some mornings, those were weird. Nice wasn't something she should ever do because it was…wrong. It'd be like the sun rising in the west. Didn't stop her from trying, asking about school, why he put up with Tootie, tips on how to deal with her, and lately she was asking how he slept. Most people asked why there were always dark circles under his eyes and after learning people think there's something very wrong with you having nightmares all the time, his excuse was insomnia. A normal enough reason that made them stop asking. His roommate was another story. She wasn't buying the insomnia, not when she knew he was setting alarms to wake him up 2-3 hours after lying down to sleep and saw his bedroom light on most of the night.

While she never came right out and asked why he wouldn't let himself sleep, she knew something was up and was waiting for him to talk. It was funny, seeing her try to be patient when he insisted it was insomnia or studying for school. His friends stopped trying to get him to talk, his girlfriend didn't bring it up, his fairies left it alone, yet here was someone who was known for being unfeeling, cold, and took joy in the suffering of others, trying to get him to open up. They were both stubborn, eventually one of them would give in and he hoped it wouldn't be him.

Now October he'd come home after work last week to find his friends decorating his house for the upcoming holiday as they'd done for the last two years. You could tell what props came from whose house; dollar store pumpkin streamers and fluorescent spiders from Chester, anatomically correct bats, skeletons, and tarantulas from AJ, the girls painted and carved pumpkins, skulls from Francis, and Tootie told everyone where to put everything. Not the most cohesive looking house on the block but definitely the most heavily decorated. Oh and Tootie decided to cover her sister's car in fake spider webbing and glitter which was a breach of the agreement she made with Timmy but he was more worried about making her leave with as little fuss as possible to clean up the mess before the older woman came home to find her car a mess. Mr. Turner had had to take her into town to buy another part to keep it going although he had a suspicion it would be magically fixed before they got back. Chester was the only one who helped him clean the car, the others took the opportunity of the raven haired tyrant being gone to place the props she didn't want put out in the yard.

Halloween was during the week day so his neighborhood decided to have trick or treat night the Saturday before which was fine with him since he, Chester, and AJ were planning to celebrate Hope's birthday that weekend anyway. It was also the only time his godparents could be out in the open with no fear of their wings and such being an issue. See since Poof and Hope liked each other so much, once in a while Timmy 'babysat' the purple haired child so the kids could play together. On Halloween he took them both out to trick or treat, even though Wanda thought that was a terrible idea that would only encourage Poof's bad habit of being too comfortable around humans. So the adult fairies would 'come over' about noon Saturday for to celebrate the two year old's birthday and then leave their son with his godbrother for the evening. Last year it worked out well enough so this year shouldn't be too much of a problem…he hoped.

Inside the house were a few colorful streamers, a makeshift ball pit courtesy of the blonde (a bigger kiddy pool filled with 'borrowed' balls from the local pizza joint's ball pit), and a couple gifts safely tucked out of reach. Technically her birthday wasn't until Monday but it wasn't like she was old enough to know the difference. His mom was bringing her over after she was done with work with Chester there to take care of her until Timmy's shift was over. However that wasn't how things worked out Friday, no she brought the toddler over at four in the morning and left her on the doorstep without so much as a knock to let anyone know what she'd done. If the teen hadn't been woken up by his latest night terror there was no telling what would have happened to the child. Judging by her red eyes and runny nose the child had been crying, their mother finally having enough of it and bringing her over…or her boyfriend wouldn't be the first time one of them got sick of the crying and drove Hope over without telling his mother.

An hour later the redhead started to come down the stairs, in nothing but her underwear and a tank top, saw the teenager sitting on the couch holding the sleeping toddler, and went back to her room. Moments later she came back down dressed in her typically weekend attire, baggy green and black stripped pajama bottoms and a tank top, looking annoyed at having her daily morning alone time disrupted.

"Sorry."

"What's Twerpette doing here so early?"

He frowned, "can you call her by her name?"

"Twerp and Twerpette are easier to remember. Answer the question."

"Someone dropped her off an hour ago, got tired of her crying I guess."

"Such great parents you have." She went into the kitchen, "I take that back, your dad's not too bad."

"Guess not."

"Don't have to work today, want me to babysit?"

Much as he hated to admit it, he didn't mind letting her babysit and in a way preferred it. Hope wasn't afraid of the redhead, hell she loved Vicky. Half the time she was there in August the woman watched her, it was a good way to show her not all females were bad, and Mrs. Dinkleberg was away on some self indulgent week long retreat. Leaving her with his ex-babysitter would be a lot easier than finding someone else, his only backup sitter was his best friend's dad who was a hit or miss on if he'd watch her.

"Be nice when Chester comes over."

"Are you implying I haven't been nice over the past three months?" Walking back into the living room she sat on the coffee table with a mug full of coffee.

"More like borderline civil."

Stone faced she put the mug on the table, "for me that's nice."

"Remind me to show you the definition of the word along with several examples."

That smile was scary, "well since what I've been doing lately isn't _nice_ then I see no point in continuing." Without another word she took her coffee upstairs to her room and didn't come out until he had to leave for school.

All day he had to put up with his friend freaking out about sharing babysitting duties with the older woman. The agreement between the roommates was still in place so the blonde was a bit courageous when interacting with her in the house. Speaking his mind more than he should have, but he also knew there was only so far he could go before receiving retaliation. With his friend not there well it was extremely intimidating, what would stop her from using old tricks and threats to get away with something when the brunette wasn't there? Chester wasn't as quick to believe she'd hold up her end so he worried. It wasn't until they were about to leave school that he finally swallowed his fear to go watch Hope.

But by the time Timmy was done with work and being driven home by Mr. Dinkleberg since his dad was working late, he'd received nearly three dozen text messages from his best friend.

_'Since when does Hope like her more than me?!'_

_ 'Your roommate won't share´ _

_ 'Duuuude she made me clean the kitchen!' _

_ 'Bitch is bossing me around' _

_ 'Your boyfriend got on my nerves' _

That last one was from Vicky, sent to him moments after he clocked out for the day.

Once home he found the most bizarre scene he had ever come home to and yes that does include anything magic/fairy related too. One, the house wasn't a mess like normal when Chester was there without supervision. Two, there were now orange and black streamers alongside the bright colored ones with small toy bats, spiders, ravens, black cats, and a lone shark hanging from the living room ceiling. A trio of blood red candles now occupied the coffee table alongside a skull with painted flowers and little designs on it. Very real looking cobwebs on the railing and half of the ball pit's contents were scattered throughout the house.

His friend sat tied to the legs of a kitchen chair in a corner of the living room, the chair secured to the wall with a generous amount of marine life patterned and green duct tape. He was covered in stickers, fish, starfish, clams, cartoon characters, plain colorful dots, there was a surgical mask over his mouth that did little to hide the duct tape beneath, the mask was scribbled on with marker that in places ran off onto the blonde's face, and he was wearing what looked like the emergency-musical-lab-partner wig. Makeup was smeared all over his face and he looked anything but amused.

On the couch trying to look like little angels who had no idea how any of this had come about were his sister and her second babysitter. Neither with so much as a speck of color or part of a sticker on them to suggest that they'd had any part in what happened to Chester. And the child seemed to know that what she'd had a part in was bad but it was also fun, how had Vicky managed to corrupt a two year old?!

Timmy spent a moment opening his mouth as if to speak, closing it to think, and repeating the process before throwing his hands up to show defeat. "Okay, I want a calm explanation from both of you but first you-" he pointed to the older woman holding the sleepy toddler, "please put her to bed and I'm going to cut him loose."

No fuss over being given orders she went upstairs to do as she was asked looking very pleased with herself while the teen went to untie his friend from the chair after making it clear the blonde was not to start shouting once he was able to do so. Surprisingly his friend did hold his tongue once he was freed, going to the kitchen to wash his face off and then sitting in the armchair picking stickers off while they waited for Vicky to come down. Timmy had tried freeing the chair from the wall, thought better of it, decided against doing anything to clean up the mess that was made, and leaned against the wall wondering if he should go get aspirin for the headache coming on. But the woman chose that moment to coming back and took a seat on the couch. Neither said a word, waiting for the brunette to speak first.

He looked at his roommate, "you put up your own decorations." She nodded so he turned to his friend, "how long were you tied up for?"

"All night."

Vicky scoffed. "Don't be a drama queen, it was maybe forty minutes."

"Why did you tie him up?"

"Where do I start? Blondie comes in and starts whining because Twerpette's takin' a shine to me but somehow we manage to get along for an hour. Then he decides to be a smartass –"

"All I did was repeat what Tootie's been sayin'!" the teen hissed rather than shouted.

Ignoring the interruption she went right on with her version of events. "Asked him to clean up since I was making dinner and found it in my cold, black heart to make enough for him too but your boyfriend decides to get pissy about it. Got even more pissed off when I told him to stop leaving the house looking like a wreck and we might have exchanged words and started throwing things at each other."

"Dude she was throwing them at me!"

"Calmed down cause Twerpette turned on the water works and made nice."

"Nice?" The brunette asked.

"She gave Hope stickers then some of that play makeup so when I said no to being a doll she tied me to the chair."

Chester's temper was lighting up again, the redhead was indifferent to the situation now, but before either could tell the rest of the story which he already had a good idea of he held up his hands to get them to hush. Children, he'd left a pair of children to watch a two year old. His friend was acting on years of repressed anger and hate, letting it take over in the absence of a peace keeper. To him it didn't make sense for all of that to happen in the few hours he was away but stranger things have happened in his life. As for Vicky she was simply being herself, the more 'people friendly' version, so all in all it wasn't the worst outcome yet he wished they could have behaved better.

Taking a deep breath he looked from one to the other, "apologize to each other."

"Uh, no."

"Why should I apologize to _that_?"

"Because I cannot have my best friend and roommate holding grudges against each other. Like it or not you'll be spending time together, both of you are idiots for this and you're both at fault. I have enough shit going on without adding your pissing contest into the mix. Learn to tolerate one another at least in my house, is that really too much for me to ask for? All you had to do was watch my sister for a while and instead you both decide to recreate what she deals with at out mother's house. It's bad enough she deals with it there so don't you two _ever_ make her go through this again or I will kick both of your asses." A rare, sincere threat, one that would have rivaled the redhead's back in the day. Both looked ashamed, alright fine the woman not so much but she did look as close to sorry as she could. They muttered apologies, considering their history he'd have to be satisfied with it.

"Two more things then you're both going to clean the mess you made and if you can't get along tomorrow then you," pointing to his friend, "don't bother coming," now at Vicky, "and you disappear for the day." He waited for them to nod before continuing, "Chester hard as it is I need you to tolerate being around her, not repeating the bullshit that comes out of Tootie's mouth, and not pushing her buttons all the time. Vicky get over yourself. You were a shitty person, want people to believe you've changed some? Prove it, be the better person for once. Now I'm done dealing with you both, clean up and decide what you're going to do tomorrow."

The next day went well enough considering events of the night before, having a four year old fairy running around, throwing a party for a two year old that so far is afraid of nearly every female she's met, and having his fairies interact with a group of teens. Tootie hadn't come, technically she'd been invited, though Timmy made no attempt to conceal his hope that she wouldn't. Most of his friends didn't stay long, they were going to a costume party later that they needed to change for, they stayed for cake and presents but that was it. AJ didn't stay much longer since he didn't care for children, especially the purple haired boy running around. His fairies 'left' after the boy genius, turning themselves into the candy bags that they'd take out trick or treating later.

Poof immediately gravitated towards the redhead once his parents were gone (he put a butterfly net over them and shoved them in the space between the couch and wall, Timmy didn't even realized it until the next morning). It was funny really. He's shyly walk up to her, make eye contact, and run to hide behind Timmy or a piece of furniture, giggling when she made faces at him. Why did the only two kids not scared of her have to be his siblings? What could he have possibly done to deserve this punishment? The raven haired girl was happy to follow the redhead around, hold her arms up to be picked up, or pout when she didn't get her way. something she hadn't done until _after_ the first time Vicky watched her. Eventually she was stuck sitting by the makeshift ball pit while the two played while the remaining teens tidied up.

There was a little over an hour before the trick or treating started. They'd leave a few big bowls of candy, supplied by Veronica and Trixie, out for anyone that might come by. So Timmy figured it was as good a time as any to get the kids into their costumes; Poof insisted on being a clam and Trixie picked out a starfish for Hope. Now AJ has never been one to let a prime opportunity to educate his friends on something that they could happily have gone through never knowing. According to him starfish are actually very brutal creatures that latch onto clams, pry them open, and keep separating the two shells halves until the poor mollusk is split in half so they many devour its corpse…made the marine animal costumes a hell of a lot less cutesy.

But kids are impatient, as are most adults, so now instead of two small children playing in the living room there was a bright purple clam…and a shark…a shark holding a demon-voodoo doll hybrid teddy bear.

So many questions but he was in no mood to ask and quite frankly wasn't interested in the answers. It wasn't like they'd make sense anyway, that was_ if_ he got a straight answer. He was so done with his roommate it wasn't even funny.

* * *

A/N: Hey Guys sorry I don't update here all that often. Always post on my dA first (HatedArtista13) and it takes a while to get around to decoding what I write for dA so I put it off.

Story is on hiatus, I need to figure out something in the next chapter before I write it otherwise it'll be a mess.


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